FCC Ruling Against Comcast a Step Toward Net Freedom

The Federal Communications Commission chastised Comcast for throttling peer-to-peer applications today, calling the practice unreasonable and ordering Comcast to change its network management policies.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, responded, "We applaud the FCC for taking enforcement action against Comcast. The nation's second largest Internet service provider violated the commission's open access rules by unlawfully blocking file-sharing services such as BitTorrent. Significantly, it violated the rules by which the Internet must operate if it is to remain an open forum."

The commission's statement elaborated upon the intrusive and arbitrary nature of Comcast's throttling. According to the report, Comcast would inspect the content of customers' connection to properly "prioritize" them. "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." According to the FCC, the policies "substantially imped[ed] consumers' ability to access the content and to use the applications of their choice."

Not surprisingly, the commission speculated that Comcast's motives were profit-oriented. Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, elaborated, "It had everything to do with a big company trying to exert its power over a captive internet market."

This decision against Comcast is a step forward toward freedom on the Internet. It is important that the Internet remains an open, democratic resource. You should be the one choosing your content and methods of communication- not corporations.

We urge the commissioners to remain vigorous in their defense of an open Internet. However, commission decisions are only as permanent as the commissioners who voted for them and we are far from a point where we can all relax secure in the knowledge that the Internet as we have always known it is safe. There is still more to be done.

Contact your legislators and let them know you support a free and open Internet unfettered by corporate censorship and the fleeting policy decisions.

For more information about our work on free speech and the Internet, please visit here.