With Comcast and NBC’s immense lobbying firepower, there’s virtually no chance their merger will be denied by regulators and while there will be some conditions, recent history suggests the conditions may only give a quick nod to substantive consumer protections. According to the Wall Street Journal however, these conditions will be “significant” focused largely on preventing Comcast from withholding, or threatening to withhold, NBC Universal’s programming from competitors. The Journal also claims that the FCC is considering imposing some kind of network neutrality requirements on Comcast’s network:

The FCC is looking at all parts of Comcast and NBC Universal’s combined online-video distribution chain for ways Comcast could promote content over its rivals. The agency is considering imposing a “net neutrality” condition on Comcast’s Internet network, banning it from deliberately slowing or blocking legal traffic. FCC staff members are meeting twice a week with commission Chairman Julius Genachowski about the deal and have set an internal deadline of circulating proposed conditions by mid-December, according to a person familiar with the review.

Given the contentiousness of network neutrality and the FCC’s seeming unwillingness to seriously tackle this issue, any neutrality language will likely be very vague and focused on simple transparency if it even survives the final cut at the FCC. According to the Journal, final DOJ approval could come within weeks, though Comcast is apparently kicking back at any proposed conditions that would cover Internet video.

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Back in 2007, NBC lawyer Rick Cotton issued a statement to the FCC demanding they force ISPs to take action against piracy for the sake of the American corn farmer. According to Cotton, piracy was becoming such a menace it was keeping people out of theaters, in turn resulting in less popcorn sold. Cotton’s logic was back on display this week as the attorney spoke in Washington at a press roundtable outlining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s intellectual property agenda. This time, Cotton equated the trading of copyrighted movies and TV shows to a “tidal wave” and “virus” while seemingly embracing ISP filters:

“The ISP community is coming to that recognition,” he said. “We need them to be authorized to take those measures. The specific techniques they use are the second part.” When asked about whether filtering web content would violate web users’ privacy, he said, “Does a virus filter violate privacy?”

With a Comcast acquisition of NBC in process, not too surprisingly consumer groups quickly slapped Cotton in a statement claiming his comments were “unconstitutional and anti-consumer,” while noting that trying to install filters that could detect fair use of a copyrighted file would be impossible. Public Knowledge also didn’t much like Cotton’s virus refernece:

“It is simply ridiculous on any number of levels to compare filtering for copyright to viruses. ISPs are technically able to tell what is a harmful virus and what is not, unlike the situation for copyright content, which may be used legally. Viruses are a danger to the ISPs network, and it is in their best interest to protect against them.”

Cotton subsequently denied to Multichannel News that he was even calling for ISP filters, and that neither Cotton nor the Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center he chairs were “addressing the question of what technique specifically should be adopted” by ISPs. As most people know, filters are expensive, depend on hardware that can’t always identify content properly, raise privacy issues, and most users would find a way around them anyway.

Instead, what the entertainment industry and ISPs have hashed out in private is a model whereby P2P users are threatened with account disconnection. As has been the case for years, the entertainment industry’s intelligence gathering outfits identify users trading copyright files, then send a DMCA warning letter to the ISP, who then forwards that letter to the users. What’s changed lately is that ISPs have agreed to subsequently threaten those users with account termination, though as we’ve noted in some cases the ISPs appear to be bluffing – wanting to keep the entertainment industry off their back, but not lose paying customers.

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According to the New York Times, Vivendi executives have agreed with General Electric in principle on a price to offload their 20% stake in NBC Universal, eliminating the final obstacle in Comcast’s planned acquisition of the media giant.

Recent leaks from inside the very leaky “secret” negotiations indicated that Vivendi wanted about $500-$900 million more than GE was willing to pay. The word now is that Vivendi is willing to part with their share for a cool $5.8 billion. As it stands, there’s a few loose ends to clear up, but the final deal should be officially announced by Thursday, according to chatty insiders.

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According to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, the telco isn’t worried about the threat Hulu poses to their freshly created TV empire, because Hulu will probably be dead in a year or two from now. “This is in for the next eight to twelve months and in two years it won’t matter because the world will have moved on,” the CEO was recently quoted as saying. He might not be wrong — Hulu very well could be headed for also-ran status once Comcast acquires NBC Universal, and does its best to ensure that Hulu doesn’t rock the TV revenue boat or bump up against the cable industry’s TV Everywhere initiative. That said, “cable guys” tend to have a degree of hubris in thinking that Internet video will never really harm them, despite the fact that when/if Hulu dies, there will be a stream of competitors (including piracy) waiting in the wings.

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