Comcast sued over Web interference

[nicole2320]

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A San Francisco Bay area subscriber to Comcast Corp.'s high-speed Internet service has sued the company, alleging it engages in unfair business practices by interfering with subscribers' file sharing.

Subscriber Jon Hart based his claims on the results of an investigation by the Associated Press published last month that showed Philadelphia-based Comcast actively interferes with attempts some high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071115/ap_on_hi_te/comcast_data_discrimination

[enter8]

I hope they have better proof than the AP tests up their sleeves. Those could have a hard time holding up in court.

[drtoker]

It would not be difficult to setup a new test. Just need 4 computers, 2 on comcast, and 2 on qwest/verison/whatever. Have both transfer files via p2p and record the results.

[enter8]

It would not be difficult to setup a new test. Just need 4 computers, 2 on comcast, and 2 on qwest/verison/whatever. Have both transfer files via p2p and record the results.

If you read the AP article, though, the throttle happens in some markets, but not in others. It also doesn't happen all the time and with every program or with every file. It's not like you can sit down at any comcast computer and recreate the phenomenon every time.

I think comcast knew perfectly well that they were going to get sued down the line and, with sandvine's help, developed software that throttled traffic in a way that was very difficult to detect.

Even if you show that your bandwith is being consistently throttled, comcast could easily come back and say that your equipment was at fault. There's a shitload of ways for them to weasel out of this in a court of law.

That AP article presented no 'smoking gun.' If they're going to nail these guys to the wall, they're going to have to find someone on the inside who's willing to say 'yeah, we throttle bandwith' or internal memos that discuss the throttling.

We'll have to wait and see what evidence they do actually have, but right now, it comes off a lot like empty threats. Empty threats may make comcast squirm, but they won't nail them to the wall. They deserve, in a very big way, to get nailed to the wall.

Ultimately, I would expect them to just settle for a small undisclosed amount and then change their ads to reflect a non-unlimited usage and possibly reword the agreement.

As far as I can tell, there is no law that says ISPs can't throttle bandwith and there probably never will be. Until then, you're going to see more and more ISPs take advantage of this technology.

[drtoker]

not sure how much it will help, but comcast has already admitted to it, saying they delay p2p traffic. Delay or block, either way its interfering, and since they have admitted to delaying it, they don't have much of a defense in terms of "prove it"

[Stilly]

Dear oh dear.