From the «torches and pitchforks» department:
Feed: Slashdot
Title: Three Companies Faked Millions of Comments Supporting 2017 Repeal of 'Net
Neutrality' Rules
Author: EditorDavid
Date: Sat, 13 May 2023 12:34:00 -0400
Link:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/05/13/0348252/three-companies-faked-millions-of-comments-supporting-2017-repeal-of-net-neutrality-rules?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed
Three companies "supplied millions of fake public comments to influence a 2017 proceeding by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal net neutrality rules," announced New York's attorney general this week. Their investigation "found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent," as well as "widespread fraud and abusive practices" Collectively, the three companies have agreed to pay $615,000 in penalties and disgorgement. This is the second series of agreements secured by Attorney General James with companies that supplied fake comments to the FCC... As detailed in a report by the Office of the Attorney General, the nation's largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to generate millions of comments to the FCC in 2017. These comments provided "cover" for the FCC to repeal net neutrality rules. To help generate these comments, the broadband industry engaged commercial lead generators that used advertisements and prizes, like gift cards and sweepstakes entries, to encourage consumers to join the campaign. However, nearly every lead
generator that was hired to enroll consumers in the campaign instead simply fabricated consumers' responses. As a result, more than 8.5 million fake comments that impersonated real people were submitted to the FCC, and more than half a million fake letters were sent to Congress. Two of the companies, LCX and
Lead ID, were each engaged to enroll consumers in the campaign. Instead, each independently fabricated responses for 1.5 million consumers. The third company,
Ifficient, acted as an intermediary, engaging other lead generators to enroll consumers in the campaign. Ifficient supplied its client with more than 840,000 fake responses it had received from the lead generators it had hired. The Office
of the Attorney General's investigation also revealed that the fraud perpetrated
by the various lead generators in the net neutrality campaign infected other government proceedings as well. Several of the lead generation firms involved in
the broadband industry's net neutrality comment campaigns had also worked on other, unrelated campaigns to influence regulatory agencies and public officials. In nearly all of these advocacy campaigns, the lead generation firms engaged in fraud. As a result, more than 1 million fake comments were generated for other rulemaking proceedings, and more than 3.5 million fake digital signatures for letters and petitions were generated for federal and state legislators and government officials across the nation. LCX and Lead ID were responsible for many of these fake comments, letters, and petition signatures. Across four advocacy campaigns in 2017 and 2018, LCX fabricated consumer responses used in approximately 900,000 public comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Similarly, in advocacy campaigns between 2017 and 2019, Lead ID fabricated more than half a million consumer responses. These campaigns targeted a variety of government agencies and officials at the federal and state levels... LCX and its principals will pay $400,000 in penalties and disgorgement to New York and $100,000 to the San Diego
District Attorney's Office. Thanks to Slashdot reader gkelley for sharing the news.
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Read more of this story[5] at Slashdot.
Links:
[1]:
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[5]:
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