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People who had personal information used in anti-net neutrality spam are asking the FCC to investigate

People who had personal information used in anti-net neutrality spam are asking the FCC to investigate

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In a letter sent today, several people who had their personal information used to post fake anti-net neutrality comments asked the FCC to investigate.

“Hundreds of thousands of other Americans may have been victimized too.”

“Whoever is behind this stole our names and addresses, publicly exposed our private information without our permission, and used our identities to file a political statement we did not sign onto,” the people write in the letter, which was sent to FCC chairman Ajit Pai by pro-net neutrality regulation group Fight For the Future and signed by 14 people who say their identities were used for comments. “Hundreds of thousands of other Americans may have been victimized too.”

The letter calls on the FCC to investigate the incident for violations of law, to remove the comments, and to publicly release any information it has on the comments.

“All proper authorities must be notified immediately and the FCC must disclose any and all information the agency has pertaining to the organization or person behind these fake comments,” the letter concludes.

Earlier this month, as John Oliver rallied viewers to send comments to the FCC opposing a proposed rollback on net neutrality rules, hundreds of thousands of identical anti-net neutrality comments appeared. The message supported the proposed rollback of Title II regulation, and included real names and addresses. When contacted, many people whose names were used said they had no idea where the comments came from.

The text of the comment came from a conservative group, which denied sending the comments. It’s still unclear who may have posted them.