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POPSObama FCC Caves on Net Neutrality -- Tuesday Betrayal Assured Instead of a rule to protect Internet users' freedom to choose, the Commission has opened the door for broadband payola - letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road. Instead of protecting openness on wireless Internet devices like the iPhone and Droid, the Commission has exempted the mobile Internet from Net Neutrality protections. This move enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others. Instead of re-establishing the FCC's authority to act as a consumer watchdog over the Internet, it places the agency's authority on a shaky and indefensible legal footing -- giving ultimate control over the Internet to a small handful of carriers.
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POPSIs The Film 'An American Carol' Being Sabotaged At The Box Office? Obviously, this type of "error" sometimes requires collusion between employees--a way of marking the ticket so that you are sent to the correct theater, even though you've been sold the wrong ticket. Before anyone jumps to conclusions and chalks this up to politics, the fact is this is a fairly rare but not unheard of occurrence. There have been payola scandals in the past and it usually has more to do with either juicing the numbers for a big budget release or, more prosaically, lazy or incompetent ticket sellers at the theaters. Would I put it past Hollywood to collude with theater owners to depress sales of AAC? No, but in this case I think it best to use Occam's Razor - everything being equal, the simplest and least complicated answer is probably the right one. “Please email us a picture of your ticket stub to: fraud@americancarol.com