CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Comcast Corp. on Tuesday acknowledged hiring people to fill seats before the start of a contentious federal hearing on how the company manages its broadband network, allowing its employees to take those seats when the filled-to-capacity hearing started.
Many people were turned away before Monday's Federal Communications Commission hearing at Harvard Law School, leading critics to accuse Comcast of stifling debate over the company's practice of favoring some forms of Internet traffic over others.
Comcast said it hired people to hold seats only after an advocacy group called Free Press urged its backers to attend.
"For the past week, the Free Press has engaged in a much more extensive campaign to lobby people to attend the hearing on its behalf," Philadelphia-based Comcast said in a statement.
After Free Press on Tuesday accused Comcast of using unfair tactics, Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice confirmed to The Associated Press that the company hired people to fill seats after the hearing room doors opened at 7 a.m. and before the 11 a.m. start. As Comcast employees arrived, they replaced the hired seat-warmers. Fitzmaurice declined to say who or how many were hired, how the company found them, or how much they were paid.
The company said it "informed our local employees about the hearing and invited them to attend. Some employees did attend, along with many members of the general public."
Free Press accused Comcast of unfairly packing a hearing that featured hearty applause — some in response to comments from a Comcast representative who testified before the FCC's five commissioners, and some in response to Comcast critics' testimony.
The practice of hiring people to fill seats in advance of public hearings isn't unknown in Congress and other forums, but Comcast critics said this case was unique.
"First, Comcast was caught blocking the Internet. Now it has been caught blocking the public from the debate," said Timothy Karr, director of an advocacy campaign backed by a coalition including Free Press. "The only people cheering Comcast are those paid to do so."
FCC spokesman Robert Kenny declined to comment. A message left after business hours for the event's host, Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, was not immediately returned.
The hearing room was nearly filled almost an hour before the event, and many people who arrived later were turned away at the door. At least 300 were inside the hearing.
The hearing came in response to complaints before the FCC that Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, hampered file-sharing traffic on its cable-modem service. The company has repeatedly said that its traffic management practices are necessary to keep other Internet traffic, like Web content, flowing smoothly.
During the hearing, FCC commissioners signaled that they were looking for greater openness from Internet providers about their traffic management practices, and were ready to step in to enforce the agency's "open Internet" policies.
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