On Friday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission ruled against Verizon in a matter regarding its customer-retention policies.

More specifically, the FCC targeted the company’s marketing strategy for convincing customers not to switch to cable. The decision came at the very last minute, as its deadline was set for midnight yesterday.

The complaint was forwarded by Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc and several others in February. The cable operators accused Verizon of improperly using client information in order to persuade them not to drop their current service.

Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), said Verizon’s actions are mainly caused by desperation. "Not to put too fine a point on it: Verizon is losing customers," he wrote in a blog post.

It all started last year when the mobile service company started contacting people who had begun taking the necessary steps towards changing providers and offering them special deals. Obviously enough, that was frown upon by many.

Verizon Wireless, the no. 2 U.S. mobile service, is a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc. At the beginning of April, the company announced its plan to use the airwaves it won in a government auction one month before, in order to implement its next generation of high-speed wireless service. The project is expected to be launched around 2010.