ANTenna Blog -- Business & E-Business

It seems that cable-TV and Internet giant Comcast can't win for losing. After being named one of bMighty's top four Technology Evil Empires last fall, it's now in the Final Deathmatch for The Consumerist's Worst Company In America.

For The Consumerist's competition, Comcast was the Number 3 seed (based on user nominations), defeating DirecTV, CapitalOne, GM, and even Bank of America (which includes Countrywide and Merrill Lynch) in online polling. (Here's the bracket.) Comcast lost to Countrywide in the 2008 finals and it faces a tough fight this year against corporate pariah and bailout champion AIG.

According to statement from Meghann Marco, Consumerist.com, "Comcast drew the ire of voters because they were viewed as monopolies that consumers were forced to deal with."

On the bMighty Evil Empires list, Comcast was joined by Google, Microsoft, and Apple. All four companies earned the designation by being perceived as powerful and arrogant . In Comcast's case, the explanation was quite different than the justifications The Consumerist used...

In a first, a cable TV company has become a technology evil empire. How did that happen?

Easy. Comcast decided it should block some Internet traffic coming from its broadband subscribers, and now it's jumping on the bandwagon to cap monthly usage. bMighty contributor Paul Korzeniowski defends Comcast, but I'm having none of it.

Blocking traffic is simply unacceptable. Period. It violates the basic principles and expectations behind using the Net. And capping traffic isn't much better. The instant you have to start worrying about whether your next click is going to cost you extra, you'll then have to start being careful about your surfing and downloading activities. That adds a moment of hesitation to everything you do, making the whole Internet a very different experience. That double whammy earns Comcast its first spot in my hall of shame.

Even if Comcast loses to AIG as the Worst Company In America -- you can cast your vote here, it might want to think about why it keeps showing up as a front-runner in these types of lists...