San Diego, CA: Comcast Corporation has agreed to settle a consumer class action that challenged the company's practice of secretly blocking certain Internet traffic while claiming to provide unlimited Internet access. The lawsuit alleges that Comcast impaired the use of some "Peer-to-Peer" file sharing traffic ("P2P") on Comcast's High-Speed Internet network. Under the terms of the settlement, Comcast has agreed to pay up to $16 million, less settlement costs, to eligible Class members.
P2P protocols facilitate the sharing and transfer of content such as high-definition movies and audio files between groups of users. P2P protocols are different than most streaming video services like YouTube and Netflix, which do not use P2P and are not involved in this case. The action is currently pending in a United States District Court.
Comcast customers may be eligible to get a refund or credit if they live in the United States or its Territories with a current or former Comcast High-Speed Internet account and either:
Used or attempted to use Comcast service to use the Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack or Gnutella P2P protocols any time from April 1, 2006 to December 31, 2008 and were unable to share files or have reason to believe that the speed at which files were shared was impaired; and/or
Attempted but were unable to use Comcast service to use Lotus Notes to send emails any time from March 26, 2007 to October 3, 2007.
