Slashdot Mirror
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."
Oh Luxury!! I do not have that option if I want high speed internet.
So what is Comcast geting off so easy?
Laws are webs that catch little bugs and let the big ones slip through.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This makes sense when you actually have an open market with competition.
Let's follow your logic, "Well if you don't like it, don't use it". I need high speed internet to work. "Well if you don't like it find a new job." I have the job I have to afford my mortgage. "Well if you don't like it, move."
So I would actually need to abandon my mortgage and find a new career because a cable company has a state approved service monopoly in the area but isn't treated like the public service utility it should be in order to garner those protections. It's a whole lot deeper than "Well if you don't like it, don't use it." in this day and age.
That is the point. If you accept the settlement, and the $16, you let them off the hook...
That is the way it is in America today. Corporate malfeasance against the individual: penalty is paying A SINGLE PENNY on the dollar. Corporations claiming malfeasance by the individual (Capitol/RIAA vs Thomas) penalty is ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on the penny!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I'm a bandwidth leech.
I get games from steam. I watch netflix movies. I use xbox live. I watch hulu. I surf the web and use other various high bandwidth applications.
Those are all high bandwidth services which saturate my Internet connection.
I usually am online at least 12 hours a day.
I pay for Internet access, I pay for those services. I don't see the problem.
The problem comcast sees is that I download several GB per day and my content doesn't come from them. I use the access I pay for.
I prefer my content come from elsewhere. Comcast's conflict of interest isn't being taken seriously.
Why should I be throttled for legally consuming content?
They're using their grammar skills there.