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Press Release Monday, January 10, 2000 |
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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Internet provider America Online (AOL) today announced plans to acquire media giant Time Warner in what would be the biggest corporate merger in U.S. history.
Consumer groups raised serious concerns about the deal, which would unite the nation's largest online company and the world's largest media and entertainment company. In response to today's announcement, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Media Access Project, and Center for Media Education issued the following statement:
"Consumers do not want to be beholden to a giant media-Internet dictatorship, even if it promises to be a benevolent one. This is the sad result of the Clinton Administration's weak competition policy that has allowed enormous consolidations, which are likely to leave consumers with fewer choices, limited competition, and higher prices.
"We will immediately ask the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to initiate a rule-making proceeding to require open access to the Internet. AOL has supported this in the past, and we are certain that these new developments add greater strength to the need for FCC action. We will also ask the FCC to review its new ownership rules, which could enable AOL, Time Warner, and AT&T to preserve anticompetitive ownership ties of cable companies that serve more than half of all consumers and control the most popular cable TV programming and Internet services.
"We want the FCC to require open access, regardless of the promises made by the players. Long-term diversity of views, choices, service, and competitive prices require public responsibilities, not just wheeling and dealing among the parties.
"We have already complained to the FCC about the lack of an open access policy and Time Warner's relationship with AT&T. The FCC has failed to effectively sever that relationship through its ownership rules as it reviews AT&T's acquisition of MediaOne. Adding AOL to the stock of services and products associated with Time Warner makes the problem even worse. Today's announcement has spurred us to redouble our efforts to break the AT&T-Time Warner relationship, including our continued opposition to the AT&T-MediaOne deal.
"AOL will immediately become the leader in high-speed Internet services. It will accomplish this by buying the very cable wire that it once said represented unfair competition to AOL. AOL chairman Steve Case has been an eloquent advocate for open Internet access generally and for federal policy specifically. He has been absolutely right, and we sincerely hope that he would continue to be such an advocate in AOL's acquisition of Time Warner."
