02/20/2008, 3:20pm, EST
Wednesday, February 20thFresh lawsuit aims at Comcast advertising
A new lawsuit has been filed against Comcast, once again accusing the cable company of improperly handling peer-to-peer file sharing. In contrast to a previous suit filed in November, the new one specifically accuses Comcast of false advertising, for claiming that it offers "unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer." Plaintiff Sandford Sidner observes that if he attempts to run a P2P application, his connection will "slow to a crawl," rendering it useless.
"I'll bet most paying customers out there have no idea that Comcast is secretly blocking and slowing down their high-speed Internet service," says Sidner. "It cuts at the heart of the service we all purchased."
The company was caught sabotaging P2P traffic in October of last year, doing so by sending out false reset packets that prevent people from uploading. The practice has raised the ire not only of individual customers but of Internet activist groups, and the FCC, which is still investigating Comcast for possible violations of net neutrality.
Sidner further accuses the company of hypocrisy, and malicious tactics. "Comcast's clandestine techniques are similar to those used by totalitarian governments to censor the use of the Internet," his complaint reads. "No doubt Comcast would characterize this behavior as illegal and malicious hacking if perpetrated by others on Comcast and its customers." [via Ars Technica]
Filed under: industry, networking
Other story tags: Comcast, lawsuits, net neutrality
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In any event, it's obvious that Comcast is poking around trying to see what it can get away with. So the more people call them on it, even if by lawsuit, the better. Otherwise it will start impacting things like AppleTV downloads. It'll think you have enough bandwidth to finish downloading while you start watching, only to have to pause halfway through you movie waiting for it to catch up!