Mark Cuban: Net rules pander to millennial voters
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said Wednesday the Federal Communications Commission's rules regulating the Internet as a utility are a "huge mistake."
The FCC's net neutrality approach pushed by President Barack Obama is "vote pandering issue" than a pure political powerplay, the Dallas Mavericks owner and "Shark Tank" co-host said in an interview on CNBC's " Squawk Box ."
"If I'm 21-years-old and thinking about voting, who was the party who was going to take away my Internet versus the party that was going to keep it," he said, but argued it could backfire on Democrats.
"'The Department of Internet' is not going to do good things," he added.
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Cuban-an advisor to AT&T (NYSE: T), which has strongly opposed the FCC's net neutrality rules-said the telecommunications company might actually benefit from the government's approach "because everything becomes a legal battle."
"In order to get approval to take something down you may have to go to the FCC," he said.
This back and forth over the future of the Internet comes at a time when more and more companies are disrupting the traditional bundle from cable and satellite television providers, CNBC parent Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) among them, by delivering content online.
Following in the footsteps of Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) video, Time Warner (NYSE: TWC)'s HBO, via Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) TV, is going directly to users who don't have a cable or satellite subscription.
Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) is taking a different approach-offering a streaming TV service with fewer channels at much lower cost.
But as Cuban pointed out, "With all the changes that we've gone through in technology, we've only seen really a couple million households drop off in terms of cord-nevers or cord-cutters. It hasn't been huge."
DISCLOSURE: CNBC owner Comcast opposed the net neutrality plan adopted by the FCC.
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