{"id":150528,"date":"2015-05-12T18:46:57","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T18:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=150528"},"modified":"2015-05-12T18:46:57","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T18:46:57","slug":"verizon-aol-merger-makes-no-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/verizon-aol-merger-makes-no-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"Verizon-AOL Merger Makes No Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<p>Verizon Communications plans to buy AOL for $4.4 billion, according to a report in Tuesday&#8217;s <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>. The deal is the telecom giant&#8217;s latest bid to expand its business to include mobile video and advertising services. If finalized, Verizon would also take control of AOL&#8217;s online news sites, including Engadget, The Huffington Post and TechCrunch.<\/p>\n<p>Free Press Research Director <strong>S. Derek Turner<\/strong> made the following statement:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Verizon&#8217;s bid for AOL is yet another example of how Wall Street&#8217;s short-term mindset shortchanges competition and investment. For the price it&#8217;s paying for AOL, Verizon could deploy its FiOS broadband service across the rest of its service area, bringing much-needed services and competition to communities like Baltimore, Boston and Buffalo. Instead, the company is spending a fortune to wade into the advertising and content-production markets. In terms of the latter, Verizon has already shown a willingness to block content and skew news coverage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to see how this transaction is good for anyone but a few brokers and lawyers. For Verizon customers and shareholders, it&#8217;s just a tremendous waste of resources the company should instead use to build lasting \u2013 and profitable \u2013 broadband infrastructure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"newswire-end\">###<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"field-wrapper-org-profile\" class=\"field-wrapper content-container clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-desc field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<p>Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Learn more at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.freepress.net\/\">www.freepress.net<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Verizon Communications plans to buy AOL for $4.4 billion, according to a report in Tuesday&#8217;s Wall Street Journal. The deal is the telecom giant&#8217;s latest bid to expand its business to include mobile video and advertising services. If finalized, Verizon would also take control of AOL&#8217;s online news sites, including Engadget, The Huffington Post and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,52,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-150528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-money","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}