Andre Yoskowitz
9 Jun 2008 0:14
The broadband provider Comcast has been served with three class-action lawsuits this week for its former practice of throttling BitTorrent file transfers for some of its users.
Late last year, users from Comcast's 14 million broadband subscribers were outraged to learn that the provider was interfering with their file sharing traffic, most notably with torrents. The FCC then got involved and there have so far been a few investigations and public hearings into the matter.
The three lawsuits, filed in California, Illinois and New Jersey each claim that the company "misled consumers when it promised to offer unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer."
"Comcast's clandestine techniques are similar to those used by totalitarian governments to censor the use of the Internet," states the Illinois complaint.
"No doubt Comcast would characterize the behavior as illegal and malicious hacking if perpetrated by others on Comcast and its customers."