Legal Trouble For Multiple ISPs

Ars Technica reports that Comcast has been hit with three new class-action lawsuits due to the company's traffic-shaping practices. "The lawsuits ... ask that Comcast be barred from continuing to violate various state laws, in addition to unspecified damages." Meanwhile, members of the US House Telecommunications Subcommittee have asked Charter Communications' president to stop testing a program which uses Deep Packet Inspection to track the habits of its customers. A number of privacy groups have voiced their support (PDF). As if that weren't enough, it seems the City of Los Angeles is suing Time Warner for fraud and deceptive business practices. The Daily News notes, "... the City Attorney is seeking $2,500 in civil penalties for each violation of the Unfair Competition law as well as an additional $2,500 civil penalty for each violation described in the complaint perpetrated against one or more senior citizens or disabled persons."

Comments

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[corsec67]

Too bad for you that the ISPs are a monopoly due to "control by government busy-bodies". Or are you suggesting that every single ISP/cable company/power company/water company/sewage company be required to run their own pipes to your house?

Don't like it, go elsewhere, like russia.

If you run from injustice instead of fighting it, guess what, you are going to lose.

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[baboo_jackal]

BTW and kind of off topic... Do you know why oil is 136 a barrel?
Yeah. OPEC, and prohibitive taxes and restrictions on domestic drilling, plus increased fossil fuels demand from developing nations.

It is because speculative corporations...
No. Speculators perform a valuable function in the free market. You're only looking at one half of the picture (the half that allows you to demonize speculators).

Speculators buy a commodity in the hopes that the price will rise. In doing so, they decrease the supply, thereby further driving up prices. (this is the "bad part" that you've fixated on). However, by driving up prices, they decrease consumption (and *please* don't trot out the "but gas is price inelastic!" argument. It's not).

The part you've neglected to mention is what happens when speculators decide to start selling their stored commodities. When a speculator guesses that scarcity is at its peak, they start selling. This increases the supply, and drives *down* price, and allowing consumption to increase.

A better way to look at speculation is this: Speculators act as "buffers" for supply and demand. They actually smooth out the peaks and valleys of supply and demand. Also, you left out the fact that speculation is *not* a risk-free enterprise. Speculators take considerable risks in storing commodities. If the price decreases, they've lost out! In addition, consider the fact that the rising price in oil incentivizes energy companies to develop alternate forms of energy, and maybe will even help politicians in the thrall of mindless environmentalist special interest groups see the folly of preventing domestic drilling for fossil fuels, and the development of a nuclear energy infrastructure.

If your opinion is that we ought to be consuming less fossil fuels, then speculators are doing you a favor! If your belief is that fossil fuels ought to be cheaper, so we'll use more energy, then why not just advocate for the development of nuclear power, or drilling in ANWR? Why not vocally denounce the unethical price-gouging behavior of OPEC nations? There are a lot more culprits to blame for this than speculators. In fact, they're the least of our worries.

But just because they happen to be making out like bandits right now, they're easy targets for ill-considered and thoughtless rhetoric.

Re:Why this constant fuzz in the US about bandwidt

[plasmacutter]

it's called a republican--corporations have a god given right to march over the "lazy" people who aren't rich--appointed FCC allowing local monopoly frachise agreements. In the majority of areas there are 2 choices, "the cable company" or "the dsl company", assuming both options exist.

telecom lobbies have exercised regulatory capture for at least a decade now, and, while their agendas are much less invasive than the RIAA, have considerably greater lobbying grip on our legislatures.

Re:Their traffic - shape it if you want

[Ephemeriis]

I am against any sort of control by government busy-bodies. Don't like it, go elsewhere, like russia. The problem is that without any sort of control by government busy-bodies companies will do whatever it takes to maximize their profits.

Without control by government busy-bodies you'd have companies using sawdust as filler in their sausages... Pressing chalk dust into tablets and calling it "aspirin"... Paying children $1/day to work in hazardous conditions... You get the idea.

And without control by government busy-bodies, as we're seeing now, companies will sell you 20 GB/month and call it "unlimited".