Tech Company Executives Won’t Commit to a Congressional Testimony for Net Neutrality ⇥ recode.net

Tony Romm, Recode:

Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix — along with their telecom industry foes — have not committed to sending their chief executives to testify before the U.S. Congress in September on the future of net neutrality.

Not a single one of those companies told the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is convening the hearing, that they would dispatch their leaders to Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks, even at a time when the Trump administration is preparing to kill the open internet rules currently on the government’s books.

The panel initially asked those four tech giants, as well as AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon, to indicate their plans for the hearing by July 31. For now, though, the committee told Recode on Monday it isn’t giving up and would extend its deadline, as it continues its quest to engage the country’s tech and telecom business leaders on net neutrality.

If someone is running a multibillion-dollar company that is at all affected by the survival or elimination of net neutrality regulations — that is, if someone is running a multibillion-dollar company at all — the very least they can do is show up to defend their position. Their tepid response belies the seriousness of what they’re being asked to do. Step up.

Update: Representatives from these same companies have now been asked for input by August 7. Oddly enough, Apple has not been invited to participate.