Verizon's Tauke: Goog-Vz proposal would 'fulfill' Obama's campaign promise

Verizon's Tom Tauke said adopting a net-neutrality policy proposal drafted by Google and Verizon would allow President Obama to meet a promise he made to voters on the campaign trail.

"It fulfills the president's campaign promise of non-discrimination and transparency on the Internet," he said in a speech at a Technology Policy Institute forum in Aspen on Monday. 

"We believe the proposal is rational — addresses the issues of concern at the time," said Tauke, who serves as executive vice president for public affairs for the telecom giant.

The proposal has been controversial with net-neutrality purists who pushed the issue into the campaign, including liberal groups MoveOn.org and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. 

But some of the "fuss" may have derived from faulty news accounts of the Google-Verizon proposal, according to Tauke. He criticized many of the portrayals as "dead wrong."

He opined a New York Times article that he characterized as an inaccurate description of the agreement. The remarks reiterate commentary Verizon has previously made on its blog and in press calls. 

"First of all, the NYT front page said that A: Verizon and Google have reached a business agreement. Wrong, this is not a business agreement," he said. 

"B: they said that we reached an agreement to prioritize Google traffic over other traffic over the Internet. Again, wrong. It's just the opposite, no prioritization over the Internet," he said. 

He said others joined the Times in its allegedly wrong-headed account.

"Others decided to engage in the long-perpetuated narrative of a two-tiered Internet. That too is wrong," he said. "Dead wrong."