[somewhat off-topic] Comcast and Verizon

[me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org (Matthew Gillen)]

On 10/31/2009 01:34 AM, David Kramer wrote:
> Matthew Gillen wrote:
>> On 10/31/2009 12:05 AM, David Kramer wrote:
>> I wasn't actually complaining about the no-server-rule (this time, though
>> that certainly is a pet peeve of mine ;-) ), I was coming at it more from
>> the point of view of Comshaft being a leader (THE leader?) in demonstrating
>> why the net-neutrality / ISPs-classified-as-common-carrier laws are needed.
>>
>> And why subject yourself to that?  Maybe they don't do bandwidth shaping on
>> the business class.  But it costs twice as much for the same 'bandwidth'.
>>
>> Are you saying I should buy business class if I want to use bittorrent?
>> Comcast has a bit of history there...
> 
> I'm saying if you want to do things that are not allowed in the contract
> for a service plan, don't sign up under that service plan.  If there are
> no rules against bittorrent, and they're blocking/slowing bittorrent,
> that's bad (but currently perfectly legal).

Nothing in their terms of service said "no bittorrent", or anything of the
sort.  They didn't make a big announcement that they were going to start
screwing with customer's traffic.  No warning, no 30-day notice of change of
TOS, they just started doing it.  Secretively.  And but for the EFF, they
may not have been caught red-handed.  That has to do with /them/ upholding
/their/ part of the contract.

They've shown the lengths they're willing to go to, and the regard with
which they hold their customers.  They weren't even apologetic about it when
the FCC slapped their wrist over the incident.  I have every reason to
believe that they'd do something similar in the future if they could figure
out a way to not get caught.

But since you brought up their penchant for putting onerous clauses in their
TOS, given their status as a quasi-utility, and gov't-granted semi-monopoly,
they are actually in a fairly heavily-regulated industry.  It's still
unclear (because the FCC has been wavering for years) on what they should
even be allowed to put in their TOS.  So I have some doubts about it being
'perfectly legal'...  (if it was, then why did the FCC get their panties in
bunch about it?)

Matt