Comcast: Bloggers keep us honest
After months of lying and evading our questions, Comcast seems to have developed a love affair with the blogosphere. Is this an early Valentine's Day present for bloggers, or is the company up to its usual tricks?
Comcast has gotten into a bit of hot water with the Federal Communications Comission over its widely criticized anti-BitTorrent filtering. The FCC Chairman Kevin Martin announced the agency's plans to investigate Comcast last month, stating that "the question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" He added that "when they have reasonable network practices, they should disclose those and make those public."
For the last month, the FCC has accepted public comments in response to a Free Press petition that will examine whether "degrading peer-to-peer traffic" violates FCC rules for reasonable network management.
Most interestingly, in a recent 80-page filing with the FCC, Comcast claims that bloggers are a sufficient enough check and balance that the agency doesn't need to get involved.
The self-policing marketplace and blogosphere, combined with vigilant scrutiny from policymakers, provides an ample check on the reasonableness of such [network management] judgments.
We at Surveillance State are flattered by Comcast's praise. Regular readers will perhaps remember that this blog was the first to argue that Comcast's actions were illegal and that the company could face lawsuits as a result of its shady filtering. We were also the first to get a politician to discuss the issue on record, in which uber-Representative Rick Boucher blasted the cable company for its sly tactics.
Comcast's gushing praise for bloggers aside, this is clearly a self-serving act on the part of the cable giant. The company repeatedly lied to bloggers and members of the press for months about its BitTorrent filtering. It was only once the Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation published independent studies that proved that Comcast was engaged in shady network behavior that the company finally fessed up, mostly. Comcast still refuses to admit that its blocking connections or forging packets, and instead sticks to its claim that it is merely delaying connections temporarily.
Bloggers and activists should not need to reverse engineer network filtering technologies in order to figure out when and how a company is engaging in shady network behavior. Comcast needs to be open with its customers about what its doing -- so that the free market can work, and consumers can vote with their wallets when they dislike an ISP's practices. Comcast has recently made a token gesture in this direction, by amending its terms of service to at least admit that filtering happens.
Comcast's past behavior with BitTorrent are clearly unfair and deceptive business practices. While bloggers should be commended for shining a light on the corporation's dirty tricks, this is an area where the government really needs to get involved. The free market simply cannot work when companies lie and distort the truth.
Hat tip to Cynthia Brumfield over at IP Democracy for finding the we-love-bloggers comment buried in Comcast's filing.
Christopher Soghoian delves into the areas of security, privacy, technology policy and cyber-law. He is a student fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society , and is a PhD candidate at Indiana University's School of Informatics. His academic work and contact information can be found by visiting www.dubfire.net/chris/. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
Here is a question to be answered. Has the RIAA issued takedown notices for the content in which they are willing to sue people over? In my view, if the content in question has been up on any p2p site for more than 6 months before being downloaded by someone, then I don't beleive that person should be subject to being sued for illegal downloading since the site has had the content available for download for half a year, and either they have ignored a takedown notice making them liable for anyone downloading that content believing it was legal to do so, or the RIAA didn't issue a takedown notice in order to trap individuals who do download the content and get them to pay large amounts of money for each item they downloaded.
As for me, I do use p2p to download content that ranges from a couple of hundred megabites to several gigabites in size, and I can guarantee that the content I download is legal.
Yes, the internet carries a very high and promising potential for very large ad-based revenues. I think that companies like Google and Yahoo have demonstrated that very well. Further, tv ads have shown that people have a fairly forgiving tolerance for interceptive-style advertising, in which a viewer is drawn for one thing, and the ad tries to piggy-back its message along with that information.
However, people this tolerance for the interceptive-style advertising is not infinite, and as the primary Internet (primary meaning the sites all the major player will try to steer you to because they probably generate optimal revenues) gets more and more loaded with ads, people will start showing their frustration and stop using those services. If this frustration gets bad enough, droves of people will stop using the Internet completely. I personally know many people who deliberately avoid many sites because they are too cluttered with ads, and consequently too difficult to accomplish anything in.
Comcast is insulting the intelligence of millions with this latest excuse. I mean, come on, holding up the blogosphere as proof that they are sufficiently reasonable in their policies? That's even worse than claiming that they are taking business risks by acting in spite of predictions by John C. Dvorak!
Oh well, the adage is, excuses only make sense to those who make them.
The U.S. is ranked 14th overall in the world in broadband speed and access according to the Organization for Economic Co-ooperation and Development. Comcast is living proof we're falling behind in technology.
There is an assumption here that people HAVE a choice of ISPs, which in many cases is just not so, unless they wish to return to a dialup connection.
I hope the politicians finally smarten up and bring back the best idea they ever had-- Local Loop Unbundling. Most of the other countries that are beating us at broadband speed, deployment and cost have that regulation in place, whereas in the US it was lobbied into an ineffective huge loophole that priced wholesale buyers out of existence Remember the dialup days when we had the choice of dozens of ISPs?
As you've stated in a roundabout way, competition would help. Problem is there isn't any real competition in this space.
Perhaps he does not realize that thousands if not millions of exchanges using peer to peer are 100% legal. Not all are a bunch of 11 year olds swapping music a few songs or some invalid limited income old man downloading a movie he would never go to the theator and watch in the first place. Peer to Peer includes broadcasting a local public event via live cam media server... It includes multiple video conferencing... It can even include, egads - businesses sharing work files with multiple employees at the same time in different areas of the country. Remember when one censors and builds a wall, it not only keeps the .00000000001 % thieves out, but also those whom actually use is honestly. Comcast is loosing customers by the thousands daily to ATT and Sprint broadband. Even if the connect is not as fast, it at least works and allows those who PAY for the services to actually USE them.
- by funchords February 21, 2008 6:05 PM PST
- Well, Comcast also said this later, in the same paper:
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- by Sephlock March 2, 2008 10:13 PM PST
- Obviously its both. In case you haven't figured it out, Comcast is a quantum company, existing in multiple states simultaneously. Bloggers are at once a monitor that can easily take the place of the FCC, and a inconsequential nuisance to be ignored.
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(10 Comments)"Critical decisions should not be based on the demands of the vocal minority who make the most noise in public forums"
So what is it? They are a valuable monitor against media abusing its power!? Or, they're just noisy troublemakers and they should be ignored (or delayed)!?
Likewise, Comcast users will find that their connections are both capped and not capped- depending on the instant at which you ask the question. It can even vary in mid-sentence!
Imagine that!