Google has issued something like a denial, claiming that the New York Times (alone) misreported a story found in dozens of news reports: that Google and Verizon had hammered out a deal on network neutrality.
“The New York Times is quite simply wrong,” a Google spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “We have not had any conversations with Verizon about paying for carriage of Google traffic. …”
Verizon also denied it.
“… As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework … To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect.”
Ah… no commercial or business arrangement, just a policy framework.
So it’s like Walmart and Phillip Morris (now Atria) cutting a deal and then saying:
“No no, we have not made a deal to sell cigarettes to 9 years olds. All we’ve done is agree to try to rewrite the laws to ensure we can sell cigarettes to 9 year olds. All assertions to the contrary–in the New York Times especially– are shockingly, hugely, super, super, super false.”
Plus, that is exactly what the Times said: an agreement on a policy framework. The Times calls the bluff: ““Google’s comment about The New York Times story refutes something The Times story didn’t say.”
Marvin Ammori 