[Infowarrior] - Fwd: Update on Netflix

[Richard Forno]

c/o CB

Begin forwarded message:

> http://www.siliconbeat.com/2012/04/09/netflix-stories-about-our-new-pac-and-sopa-are-not-true/
> 
> 
> Netflix: Stories about our new PAC and SOPA are not true
> 
> Posted by Chris O'Brien on April 9th, 2012 at 3:26 pm | Categorized as
> O'Brien, Social Media, Strategy | Tagged as anonymous, Netflix, sopa
> 
> It doesn’t take much to start an insta-campaign these days against
> someone or something thanks to social media. So when an editor emailed a
> link to a story about Netflix creating a new SuperPAC to support SOPA, I
> could see this would be a story that was going to prompt a strong
> backlash against a company that doesn’t really need another one at this
> point.
> 
> Sure enough, it appeared Anonymous seemed to be making some waves with
> an anti-Netflix campaign at: #OpBoycottNetflix .
> 
> So, I decided to look for the offending document, and found instead a
> generic registration for a Political Action Committee filed on April 5
> that seemed pretty benign. No mention of taking any positions on SOPA or
> any other insues.
> 
> Then I emailed the company. Noting that the original report about the
> PAC came from the “Russian News Agency,” a Netflix spokesman said:
> 
>    “PACs are commonplace for companies that lead a big, growing market
> and Netflix is no exception. Our PAC is a way for our employees to
> support candidates that understand our business and technology.  It was
> not set up for the purpose of supporting SOPA or PIPA.  Instead, Netflix
> has engaged on other issues including network neutrality, bandwidth
> caps, usage based billing and reforming the Video Privacy Protection
> Act.”
> 
> On the whole, Netflix has a fairly small presence in Washington. It just
> formally registered to lobby for the first time in late 2010. And in
> 2011, the company spent $500,000 lobbying Congress on topics such as:
> “Telecommunications issues, Internet non-discrimination; Internet
> privacy, Intellectual property issues; Internet competition issues; H.R.
> 2471, Video Privacy Protection Act,” according to Senate lobbying
> disclosure records.
> 
> Will any of this halt the campaign? Probably not. As I write, the tweets
> are still flying fast and furious.
>