Netflix CEO reacts to AT&T and Time Warner deal

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- Netflix's CEO says he is not against the massive AT&T-Time Warner deal so long as Netflix will be treated the same way as HBO.

Speaking Monday at the Wall Street Journal's WSDLive conference, CEO Reed Hastings said he had no objection to the deal if AT&T respected the tenets of net neutrality.

"I think AT&T is going to be very aggressive about building a national competitor to all of the cable companies, like Direct has been from the satellite technology, and if they pull that off, that would be in the consumers' interest," Hastings said.

"The key thing is with net neutrality which has not been AT&T's favorite topic. It would be a change of heart of AT&T but if they got there... then good things might happen."

Hastings is not the first to raise questions about net neutrality in the wake of the Time Warner-AT&T deal. At a basic level, net neutrality holds that all content should be treated the same by internet companies Or, in this case, "HBO's bits and Netflix's bits are treated the same," as Hastings said.

The principle sounds straightforward enough but Hastings has good reason to be concerned. The CEO previously had a very public battle with Comcast over the issue. And, as Mashable's Pete Pachal has already pointed out, it's all but certain that AT&T will look for ways to make it easier to distribute content from HBO and its other new media properties should the deal go through.

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