FCC to punish Comcast

Bad Comcast. Bad, bad, Comcast. A majority of the five Commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission have cast votes in favor of punishing Comcast for blocking subscribers' Internet traffic. Comcast, the nation's largest cable company and one of the largest broadband service providers, was accused of violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet. Three Commissioners have voted in favor of an order reaching agreement with the finding, but the decision will not be final until all five members have cast their votes. The FCC is scheduled to take up the issue at its August 1 meeting. The three votes in favor were Chairman Kevin Martin and fellow Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. The potentially precedent-setting move stems from a complaint that the company had blocked Internet traffic among users of a certain type of "file sharing" software that allows them to exchange large amounts of data. Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, said, "If adopted, this order would send a strong signal to the marketplace that arbitrarily interfering with users' online choices is not acceptable. Internet service providers do not get to decide the winners and losers online."