Fergie's Tech Blog

FCC Declares Comcast's Throttling Violated Net Neutrality

David Kravets writes on Threat Level:

The Federal Communications Commission, by a 3-2 vote Friday, blasted Comcast's network-management practices of throttling BitTorrent peer-to-peer applications, calling them unreasonable and a violation of FCC rules.

"In analyzing whether Comcast violated federal policy when it blocked access to certain applications, we conduct a fact-specific inquiry into whether the management practice they used was reasonable," FCC commissioner Kevin Martin said. "Based on many reasons, including the arbitrary nature of the blocking, the lack of relation to times of congestion or size of files, and the manner in which they hid their conduct from their subscribers, we conclude it was not."

The commission concluded that Comcast had interfered with internet users' right to access the internet and to use applications of their choice. The commission said Comcast monitored the content of its customers' internet connections and selectively blocked peer-to-peer connections.

posted by Fergie @ 8/01/2008 11:03:00 AM