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LAS VEGAS—AT&T chose Vegas to announce it's new "Sponsored Data" plan, which will allow AT&T wireless customers to access online services of participating (paying) companies without using any of their monthly data allowance. How completely appropriate that the telecom giant chose Vegas, because "Sponsored Data" indeed picks winners and gambles with the competitive future of the Internet.
Here's how the new program will work: Let's say Facebook signs up for the program with AT&T. If you're an AT&T customer, you'll be able to use Facebook all you want on your mobile device and Facebook will pay AT&T for your data use.
Sounds great, right? Not so much. Consumer activist groups were quick to respond to today's announcement from AT&T. "This is but the latest example of how data caps are increasingly becoming used to threaten the open internet," said Public Knowledge acting co-president Michael Weinberg in a statement.
AT&T has for years been looking for a way to sell preferential treatment on its network to big internet companies who can afford it. Way back in 2005 when Ed Whitacre was CEO the company bristled at having to give everybody equal access, abiding by all those pesky net neutrality rules. Here's Whitacre quoted in an interview with BusinessWeek:
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