ChicoMax

Late last year, the Associated Press caught Comcast secretly blocking users ability to use peer-to-peer software to share information with one another. Comcast was using Web filtering technologies similar to those used in China to censor the Internet. AP called the violation “the most drastic example yet of data discrimination.”
Free Press and other Internet rights groups filed a petition with the FCC calling for urgent action to stop Comcast’s Internet blocking. Tens of thousands of activists sent letters to the agency in support of our petition. Public pressure is now forcing the FCC to act.
Comcast blocking of online content is the canary in the coal mine for corporate efforts to gate-keep the Internet. The FCC must send a stern message to stop other phone and cable companies that want to follow Comcast’s lead and control our Internet experience.
Comcast claims it doesn’t block access to any Web sites or online applications. It claims its just trying to “manage the network” to provide a “good Internet experience” for its customers. Sounds innocuous enough. But the devil, as always, is in the details.
Detail #1: Comcast’s technology doesn’t target individual users — it targets an entire technological protocol. Comcast isn’t just cracking down on “bandwidth hogs.” Regardless of an individual user’s actual bandwidth consumption, she may be blocked simply for choosing to upload through a targeted application (Bit Torrent, etc.). I would like to hear anyone argue this is a fair adoption of “network management” techniques. Such methods directly contradict the core principles of the open Internet.
Detail #2: Comcast’s technology falsely impersonates its customers. Even if Comcast has the right to manage its networks, does it have the right to impersonate its customers to achieve network control? Clearly Comcast engaged in such a deceitful practice to avoid customers noticing and complaining. Such behavior may very well fall within the type of unfair or deceptive trade practices regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. Lawsuits are likely to follow.
What’s Comcast Doing?
Such secretive and misleading practices — at least when they’re exposed — are likely to be bad for business. So why did Comcast interfere in such an unsavory manner? The first answer is simple: They thought they could get away with it. After all Comcast’s filtering technology is highly complex and not always noticeable to end-users.
And what can you do if you find out that Comcast has blocked you? Switch to AT&T or Verizon and suffer with slow DSL speeds and their own draconian terms of service.
But I think there is a second, more insidious but logical explanation: Comcast is paving the way to stifle competition in video delivery services. The world’s largest cable television company, Comcast has a natural incentive to keep customers watching movies and television shows through their system, not the Internet.
 
Thanks to our friends at http://www.savetheinternet.com  We need groups like this to help us to keep an eye on the efforts of large corporations to block our access to information.  Keep up the good work.