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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."
Dear Fellow ‘Netizens, I’m writing to urge Comcast subscribers to opt-out of the proposed P2P Congestion Settlement between Comcast Corporation and its customers (http://p2pcongestionsettlement.com/). There are huge problems with the deal, but it only takes you a minute to reject it.
Robb Topolski is urging people to opt-out in the InfoWorld summary.
"If people reject the settlement, they are freed from the restrictions of this settlement and can sue independently or join any other action," Topolski said in an email. "If enough people reject the settlement, it sends a strong message that the class of people that this settlement was intended to represent are dissatisfied."
That is the point. If you accept the settlement, and the $16, you let them off the hook. If you do not, you can go after them for more. The hope is that a lot of people will reject it, allowing another class action to go through.
they should have been forced to refund all the subscription fees they collected while they were throttling.
That will never happen. But it damn well should.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
They are. Last time I checked they were capping service at 5GB, so you're better off paying less and using a faster cellular connection (also capped at 5GB though). Hughes and BlueSky are strictly last resort options for those who have no cell, cable, or dsl service.
Caveat Utilitor
The reasoning is that if you take this payout, you're basically telling the legal system that this payout has righted the wrongs that Comcast made, and that you have no further claim to the wrongs. Same reason insurance companies will offer some seemingly high but lowball amount settlement really quick hoping you'll accept so that youcan't go after them when it turns out you can no longer lift anything over ten pounds. They turn a $100k settlement into a $5k settlement and gain protection from the court.
Same thing Comcast is doing here. They should be on the hook a lot MORE for being little fucking script kiddies to drive their costs down.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
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.
Only the reception, pricing, throttling, and the fact their stuff stops working whenever we have a hurricane. $60 a month is a bit strong too especially when I had to purchase the modem. They frequently halt bandwidth flow for minutes at a time (signal strength is good during these times and disconnecting / reconnecting solves the problem temporarily). Unfortunately they're the chosen vendor for now.
Yes - that way, all the opt-out people can bring a new lawsuit against Comcrap.
No matter how you argue it, the problem still lies with the ISP. They sell an internet connection with "unlimited data" and start complaining when you actually use it - even worse, they start secretly throttling the connection.
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