Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is lying to his customers and enlisting them as “pawns” in his business battles, Verizon said Wednesday in a blistering shot at the video-streaming company.
The Hastings pasting comes after Netflix, in an effort to shame Internet service providers when streaming speeds slow down and interrupt its shows, started sending direct messages to customers that blamed specific ISPs.
“It is sad that Netflix is willing to deliberately mislead its customers so they can be used as pawns in business negotiations and regulatory proceedings,” Verizon executive David Young wrote in a blog update on the company’s site.
Netflix already publishes a monthly report ranking ISPs based on speeds — but it appears ready to up the ante in the Internet traffic game.
“The AT&T network is crowded right now,” read one message a Netflix user reported receiving recently.
The streaming giant said it was only looking to give its customers more info.
“We are testing ways to let consumers know how their Netflix experience is being affected by congestion on their broadband provider’s network,” Netflix spokesman Joris Evers told The Post, referring to the message campaign, which kicked off in May.
An AT&T spokesman didn’t return a call for comment.
“The source of the problem is almost certainly not congestion in Verizon’s network,” said Young. “Instead, the problem is most likely congestion on the connection that Netflix has chosen to use to reach Verizon’s network.”
Hastings has been publicly warring with cable companies since earlier this year when it became clear he was going to have to shell out money to win more direct back-end connections to ISPs like Comcast and Verizon to deal with slowing service.
The ISPs have been blaming the congestion on the backend providers, like Cogent and Level 3, but Cogent specifically has fought back saying the ISPs deliberately slow the connections.