Thaindian News

By Ranjan Bhaduri
Nov 30, (THAINDIAN NEWS) A group comprising of leading Internet companies and some non-profit bodies declared Monday that it has joined hands with a group that is against Comcast Corp.’s bid to gain control of the NBC Universal Inc. The group named NetCoalition earlier said that it will oppose the deal. As a matter of fact, the members of NetCoalition are some of the Internet and technology heavyweights like Yahoo, Google ands eBay, among others. Comcast was severely criticized by Minnesota senator Al Franken, when it had announced its plans to merge with NBC Universal.

The senator was so enraged over the matter that he had sent a letter to the Justice Department to probe whether Comcast was breaching the antitrust laws by attempting to gain control over NBC Universal and if it was trying to do so before the deal was finalized. Comcast, however, tried to defend itself to the fullest saying that “post-closing management teams are regularly announced prior to antitrust approval”. NBC Universal is owned presently by the General Electric Co. Meanwhile, NetCoalition’s executive director Markham Erickson has expressed his concern that this merger will result in lessening of broadband network investment, and the creation of a media behemoth that will ultimately prove to be costly to the customers.

It is quite clear that Internet search giant Google is totally against this deal. The irony is that Google is not opposing the deal openly on its own as of now. Yahoo which is also a part of the group has not said anything on its part individually.