Verizon has threatened to take legal action against Netflix if the streaming video provider does not stop displaying a message to customers blaming Verizon for slow services. In a letter to Netflix's legal counsel, Verizon gave the company five days to stop displaying any messages blaming Verizon for video quality issues and provide Verizon with details on which customers had seen such a message. The news follows a tweet from a journalist with a photo of the message Netflix shows on the screen for users who experience buffering: "The Verizon network is crowded right now."
Verizon said in a statement that the "this claim is not only inaccurate, it is deliberately misleading". It denied its network was the source of the congestion and said it's more likely to do with the path Netflix has chosen to reach Verizon's network. "It is sad that Netflix is willing to deliberately mislead its customers so they can be used as pawns in business negotiations and regulatory proceedings," Verizon said. In April, Netflix agreed an interconnection deal with Verizon.
