The New York attorney general’s office issued a report Thursday confirming that some of the US’s largest broadband providers engaged in a massive campaign to flood the Federal Communications Commission with fake comments in the run-up to the commission’s 2017 order to roll back net neutrality.
The attorney general’s multi-year investigation found that fake comments accounted for the vast majority of comments received in response to the order — nearly 18 million, out of a total of 22 million.
The comments were submitted through a process called “co-registration,” which saw outside companies promising “gift cards and sweepstakes entries” in order to attract consumers to join in the campaign. They would then use that information to file…