FCC chief says Comcast violated Internet rules
Company violated agency principles that guarantee open access to web
This is going to be a bellwether.
The head of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday he will recommend that the nation's largest cable company be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet.
The potentially precedent-setting move stems from a complaint against Comcast Corp. 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.
“The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumers access to the Internet," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press late Thursday. “We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."
Martin said Comcast has “arbitrarily" blocked Internet access, regardless of the level of traffic, and failed to disclose to consumers that it was doing so.
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