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Comcast Customers Urged To Opt-Out of Settlement
funchords writes "As a settlement to the class-action lawsuits over Comcast's blocking of users' Internet traffic, Comcast stands to pay 'up to' $16.00 to every subscriber who makes a claim at their settlement website and declares, under penalty of perjury, that their online activity was for a lawful purpose consistent with applicable copyright and other laws. Robb Topolski, the veteran networking engineer who kicked off the case when he discovered the blocking back in 2007, says that the proposed settlement doesn't make sense, especially after the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled this month that the US Federal Communications Commission didn't have the authority to enforce its Net neutrality principles on Comcast. 'You paid about $50 a month for the service, and the amount that Comcast stands to return is up to about 50c per month for each month that it blocked traffic,' he wrote. 'If that tiny amount of money is compensation, then there is no penalty to Comcast for interfering with its customers, for failing to disclose it, for repeatedly lying about it, and for taking so long to stop it.' The Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in late 2007, each independently confirmed Topolski's reports that Comcast was blocking BitTorrent and some other traffic without telling its customers. Comcast first denied interfering with traffic, then finally said it throttled some applications only during times of peak congestion. However, studies from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany eventually proved that Comcast slowed BitTorrent traffic around the clock."
...by never signing up for their service.
Never understood class action lawsuits. I would rather that if The Big Copr is found guilty, the punitive changes should be at leat 25% of their last year's profit or more.
I haven't read any of the relevant articles, but the summary doesn't say anyone is urging anyone to opt-out of the settlement. Better headlines, please?
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
The punishment is at least 2-3x what users are potentially getting.
I get that the courts ruled that the FCC can't mandate how ISP route their traffic. They can't enforce net neutrality.
But, in this case we had the ISP injecting packets to cause end user software to abort a communication. Last I checked, man in the middle attacks that interfere with network communications was worthy of felony hacking charges. So what is Comcast geting off so easy?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Lawyer gets 3 million (20%), while you get 0.000001% (16 bucks out of 16 million)
Lead plaintiff gets $2500
As usual, everyone but the lawyers lose.
Not the greatest speed, but there are options:
HughesNet
WildBlue
But if they begin throttling bittorrent again, why would I pay them $100 a month for a 50 megabit connection?
Seems to me it's in their best interests not to slow down bittorrent.
Before I knew they were throttling bittorrent, I just assumed that bittorrent was incapable of maxing out my connection. So I saw no need to upgrade to faster service.
And now that I have the faster service and I know better, if Comcast throttles me back, they can kiss $75 a month extra goodbye from me because bittorrent is why I need that bandwidth in the first place.
Why does your subject say as much as "?" would? This would have been infinitely better: "Man-in-the-middle attacks, not filtering"
So the settlement doesn't make Comcast pay out enough money, so everybody should opt out, so Comcast gets to pay nothing?
Breakfast served all day!
...who believes that bandwidth leeches (yes, you know who you are) should be capped? There are always those that push the envelope in any situation. Bandwidth leeches belong to that group. I would bet (totally anecdotal here) that the number of bandwidth leeches that are in the top 5% of bandwidth usage comprise only a few percentage points of Comcast subscribers. Why is it a loss to those of us who play nice with others when the few greedy subscribers are throttled?
Buy a T3 if high speed is so essential to your business.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
From the settlement website: How do I exclude myself from the Settlement Class? If you do not wish to be a Settlement Class Member, you may exclude yourself by writing to the Claims Administrator. You must provide your full name and address, state that you want to opt out of the Settlement, and deliver your request by mail, hand, or overnight delivery service to the P2P Congestion Settlement Claims Administrator, c/o Rust Consulting, P.O. Box 9454, Minneapolis, MN 55440-9454. Your request must be postmarked no later than May 13, 2010. http://p2pcongestionsettlement.com/SettlementNotice.htm
Wrong. That wasn't the ruling. That was the sensationalist headline put out by all the news outlets to get ad viewers. Read the commission statement regarding that case: http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/ The court merely invalidated one of the enforcement methods the FCC was using.
I could tell you they blocked Legit p2p traffic 24/7 because I was trying to download vmware player iso's just to see what they were talking about. I wanted to see if they were a good solution what I did. I guess preventing someone from working isn't that important.
they have much more bandwidth at much lower prices
oh no, but they're SOCIALIST countries!
you know, that evil scary word that blocks out all common sense because we worship the free market fairy
the free market fairy solves all problems and is always superior to public solutions, always. look how far ahead our bandwidths are than evil socialist countries, dealing as we do with loving corporations like comcast that always have our needs at heart </sarcasm>
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
By allowing ISP's to offer "Unlimited Internet Access" and then failing to hold them to that; verbatim from the very beginning, is what set the pace for them to dictate exactly how they want to define that phrase.
unlimited –adjective
1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined: unlimited trade.
2. boundless; infinite; vast: the unlimited skies.
3. without any qualification or exception; unconditional.
Obviously, they've been allowed the use of an alternate-reality dictionary that has not been made available to the general public.
This also affects any of the millions of World of Warcraft players that also use Comcast. I'm pretty sure World of Warcraft uses the BitTorrent protocol for patching.
ACTION REQUIRED - IMPORTANT: To opt-out from the settlement, simply write "I want to opt-out of the settlement" along with your name and address and mail it by May 13th to: P2P Congestion Settlement Claims Administrator; c/o Rust Consulting; P.O. Box 9454; Minneapolis, MN 55440-9454. Ask your friends to please do the same. If we want a meaningful settlement in this case and open Internet in our future, it's important to spread the word and send a strong message to Comcast and the industry.
CAPS LOCK IS THE CRUISE CONTROL OF AWESOMNESS
They want my account number to file or opt out of the claim, but at the bottom it says "DO NOT CONTACT COMCAST OR THE COURT FOR INFORMATION." It's been years since I used their shitty internet, how am I supposed to remember my account number?
Comcast is getting off easy because the attorney's bringing the suit were bribed with $3 million dollars and decided they would take the money and let Comcast continue to deny that they interfered with their customer's traffic. That also makes the summary inaccurate, not only did they at first deny they were blocking traffic, but the class action suit legal papers still deny that they were blocking traffic.