Comments on: Comcast to face lawsuits over BitTorrent filtering

Has Comcast shot itself in the foot? Lawyers are already circling in the water, and the company could be looking at a world of pain for its sneaky BitTorrent filtering.

[R. U. Sirius]

It Goes Further

This needs to be on the front page of the Cnet site. This seems to me the line in the sand, whether we are going to have a neutral network or whether ISP's can control what you can read and watch over the net.

Also, go over to ARS and Techdirt forums, and users are posting information about Comcast blocking access to Google, to Amazon, and other sites.

[hawkeyeaz1]

What Comcast is missing

When they advertize X Kb/s upload and Y Kb/s download, and the customer pays for that, they shou get it. It doesn't matter if the contract does say "if you use your allocated bandwidth excessively, we have the right to terminate your account" as you are *paying* for it. Otherwise that is false advertizing, and that is another can or worms. Comcast realy shouldn't expect to get paid for nothing, and that is what it sounds like they think from this whole ordeal.

Sure, they have a right to place certain restrictions on certain traffic, but those restrictions should be for more legitimate reasons, not to rob you of your paid for service. It is reasons like this Network Neutrility does look so good....

[tro511]

The photo in your blog entry...racist?

I don't think that's a stretch! All-in-all decent article though.

[csoghoian]

Don't be silly

It's a LolCat. They're supposed to be written that way.

The photo I used was the only decent one on Comcast's site that was free to use by members of the press. The text is in no way a statement about the race of the actor pictured, but is a statement about Comcast's sneaky tactics online.

[disco-legend-zeke]

Hey, its a FELONY.

In many states its a felony to "Interfere with the lawful use of a computer, network, or service."

Since Comcast is doing exactly that, it might be time to check your state law and file a complaint.

As far as "unspecified abuse" this is in the TOS of many carriers, perhaps consumers and regulators should require some kind of "truth in advertising." Most Internet network planning is done on a 10:1 overselling of bandwidth. If that is the case, a 5 meg connection should be sold as "10% usage of 5 M channel." Or "500K burstable to 5 Megs."

There is nothing wrong with traffic shaping as such, but it should be fully disclosed and non-discriminatory.

[cutter_hollis]

Cutter Hollis Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Well i?m so new to hearing from other people all the illegal privacy violations taking place across the internet,and from with people you pay money to for a service like Comast,and AT&T. How ever i?ve been notice a lot of strange changes taking place like email being deleted,having the same ip address since last year, my firewall telling me that a browser i was?nt using at the time taking was trying to take snap shots of different web pages i was surfing,and after repeatedly asking comcast to change my ip address, not having it done even when they said they were?I wish also that it was a internet company out there that did?nt sell you out like a snitch to the FEDS or anyone else who has more money.resources than the average consumer?.Can anyone out there ...If so you can reach me at [e-mail]