AT&T rallies its workers, friends and families against open Internet rules

AT&T (T) is urging its store managers as well as their families and friends to oppose net neutrality, the hotly contested proposed federal rules that would prohibit broadband carriers from favoring their own content over competitors' programming.

In a stunningly candid internal memo leaked onto the Internet, Jim Cicconi, AT&T's top lobbyist, urges U.S. AT&T store mangers "to join the voices telling the FCC not to regulate the Internet."

"Those who seek to impose extreme regulations on the network are flooding the site to influence the FCC," Cicconi warns, urging the company's 300,000 employees to organize their friends and families to oppose the new rules.