In a landmark ruling, the Federal Communications Commission has ordered Comcast to stop its controversial practice of throttling file sharing traffic.
By a 3-2 vote, the commission on Friday concluded that Comcast monitored the content of its customers' internet connections and selectively blocked peer-to-peer connections.
The selective blocking of file sharing traffic interfered with users' rights to access the internet and to use applications of their choice, the commission said.
"Comcast's practices are not minimally intrusive, as the company claims, but rather are invasive and have significant effects," the commission said in a statement.
Comcast denies the findings.
The commission's ruling is a landmark defense of FCC policies on Net Neutrality, which forbid restrictions on the kinds of equipment, communication and content allowed on the Internet. Comcast's discrimination against file sharing traffic violates Net Neutrality, critics say.
The commission blasted Comcast's network-management practices of throttling BitTorrent peer-to-peer applications, calling them unreasonable and a violation of FCC rules.
The commission, without ordering monetary sanctions, ordered a halt to the practice and gave Comcast 30 days to fully disclose its throttling methods.
According to the commission, Comcast uses deep-packet inspection to monitor customers' internet traffic, and routes packets according to their content, not their destination.
"In essence, Comcast opens its customers' mail because it wants to deliver mail not based on the address on the envelope but on the type of letter contained therein," the commission said.
Comcast's throttling was widespread -- up to three-quarters of all file sharing connections in certain areas, the commission said, resulting in a significant disruption to internet traffic, the commission said.
Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said the company was "gratified that the commission did not find any conduct by Comcast that justified a fine." She said the company did not throttle traffic.
But she added that "we are disappointed in the Commission’s divided conclusion because we believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices and that we did not block access to websites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services."
Fitzmaurice said Comcast was "considering all our legal options and are disappointed that the commission rejected our attempts to settle this issue without further delays."
The commission speculated that Comcast's motives were profit-oriented.
Noting that BitTorrent files allow online surfers to watch high-quality video, "such video distribution poses a potential competitive threat to Comcast's video-on-demand (VOD) service," the commission said in a statement.
(It should be noted, however, that BitTorrent, while having many legitimate uses, is the protocol of choice for the illegitimate trafficking of movies, software and other copyrighted content.)
A nonprofit digital rights group, Public Knowledge, brought the complaint against Comcast to the FCC months ago.
"Comcast’s throttling of legal internet traffic had nothing to do with network management as the company claims," said Gigi Sohn, the group's president. "It had everything to do with a big company trying to exert its power over a captive internet market."
Martin, a Republican, proposed Friday's order. Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both Democrats, signed on with Martin. Republican commissioners Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate voted against the measure.
In 2005, the commission adopted a policy of net neutrality rules to ensure the internet was "accessible to all consumers."
McDowell said the decision politicizes the internet.
"The majority has thrust politicians and bureaucrats into engineering decisions," he said in a sharp dissent. "It will be interesting to see how the FCC will handle its newly created power because, as an institution, we are incapable of deciding any issue in the nanoseconds of internet time. Furthermore, asking our government to make these decisions will mean that every two to four years the ground rules could change depending on election results."
Illustration: M3Li55@/Flickr
See Also:
- Lawmaker Crying Foul Ahead of FCC Net Neutrality Decision
- Comcast Hijackers Say They Warned the Company First
- Comcast.net Hijacked, Redirected
- Stop the Blocking, Feds to Tell Comcast
- Comcast Beginning 'Net Neutrality' Testing
- Comcast Makes a Deal with BitTorrent
- Comcast Using Malicious Hacker Technique Against Own Customers ...
