Richard Drew / AP Photo
Can you hear us now? Google and Verizon are pushing back on reports that the two companies struck a deal to enable the communications giant to selectively control how fast the Internet travels over its wires. Google has been a longtime advocate of net neutrality and consumer choice online. Now, both Google and Verizon are vehemently denying reports that such a deal has been reached. David Fish, Verizon's executive director of media relations, wrote on a company blog that the alleged deal "fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect." Google told Gizmodo that the reports were "simply wrong. We have not had any conversations with Verizon about paying for carriage of Google or YouTube traffic. We remain as committed as we always have been to an open Internet."