Denying a report that it was dropping a false-advertising complaint against its fiercest rival, Verizon (NYSE: VZ), Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) said it is merely combining the action with a previously filed lawsuit in another court.
In May, Cablevision filed suit against Verizon in a Manhattan federal court, defending a Cablevision TV commercial that claims Verizon's FiOS service partially relies on cable to deliver video and Internet into residences. Verizon had complained to the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division, which challenged Cablevision's assertion that FiOS actually uses cable and is not "100 percent fiber."
Earlier, in January, Cablevision filed a separate claim in the federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., alleging that the Verizon made false and misleading claims about the MSO's Wi-Fi service in ads.
Reuters originally reported that Cablevision voluntarily dropped the lawsuit filed in May in Manhattan. But a Cablevision rep told FierceCable "there's no 'dropping' anything." The case, she said, is merely being dismissed in Manhattan as part of a process to move it over to the Central Islip court, where it can be combined with the claim filed in January.
Alberto Canal, a Verizon spokesman, told Reuters, "voices of our customers carry a lot more weight than a misinformation campaign of a competitor."
For more:
- read this Reuters story
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