It looks like greed won the argument in an administration that admires it.

November 29, 2017

By Todd Shields

....Someone (click here) was trying to game the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s electronic public comment system on net-neutrality rules.

But who? Was it supporters or foes of the open internet rules -- or was it the Russians?

A study has found more than 7.75 million comments were submitted from email domains attributed to FakeMailGenerator.com, and they had nearly identical wording. The FCC says some of the nearly 23 million comments on Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to gut Obama-era rules were filed under the same name more than 90 times each.

And then there were the 444,938 from Russian email addresses, which also raised eyebrows, even though it’s unclear if they were from actual Russian citizens or computer bots originating in the U.S. or elsewhere.

The oddities in the FCC’s inbox have attracted scrutiny from New York’s attorney general and from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which has opened a probe.

“In an era where foreign governments have indisputably tried to use the internet and social media to influence our elections, federal and state governments should be working together to ensure that malevolent actors cannot subvert our administrative agencies’ decision-making processes,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in an open letter to the FCC....