$16 million settlement over Comcast's P2P throttling nets the affected $16

More than two years after information about Comcast's data delaying techniques came to light, a class action lawsuit over the issue has come to a close with a settlement of $16 million and no statement of wrongdoing from the cable giant. That means Comcast continues to tout its newer bandwidth management protocols and those of you that used Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack or Gnutella between April '06 and December '08 and/or Lotus Notes on the service anytime in the summer of 2007 can head over to the settlement website to either opt out of the class action or receive a $16 check. So is that enough cash to make up for the time wasted waiting for Naruto fansubs, Gutsy Gibbon images and the like to finish downloading?

[KidDynamic Posted Dec 28th 2009 6:29PM]

@surgex

The lawsuit wasn't to actually fix the issue. It's never been about justice. It's about cash money for law firms.

Step One: Scour the news and user forums to find something a corporation did that's actionable.
Step Two: Set up a website and phone number and file a class-action in all 50 states, on "behalf" of the unfortunate customers.
Step twopointfive: Success? Champagne!
Step Three: Punitive damages until they settle.
Step Four: Offer a couple bucks to each customer. But only if they promise never to sue again.
Step Five: Walk away with several million dollars, leaving the consumer with a couple bucks and a jacked-up bill.

[Gflo Posted Dec 26th 2009 11:18AM]

I'd still rather have comcast than AT&T dsl. The Throttled speeds are the same as at&t's max burst rate

[Tohe Posted Dec 27th 2009 8:16PM]

@Gflo

That is why I went with a reliable local company. I don't pay for a brand, I pay for my bandwidth.

[CHICHIgetdaYAYO Posted Dec 27th 2009 12:57AM]

Sigh..I wish they had a KIRF for an ISP...can someon clone Comcast and add more features please? Thx.

[Entourage Posted Dec 27th 2009 1:54AM]

Hehe those were the days...

I use to download Naruto on Bit Tornado when I had comcast.

[The Missing Link Posted Dec 27th 2009 6:24AM]

Fuck you Comcast, I can't wait until U-verse comes to my area.

[Wwhat Posted Dec 27th 2009 10:24AM]

Silly americans and their republic, in the EU they are making a secret non-public ACTA signing agreement, and no democracy of right of individuals or even involvement of opposition parties will be allowed, since the people are slaves in a global feudal system and owned by a few powermongers and big corporations, that's the modern (and classical) way of doing things. Yay..
Throttling and filtering will be enforced by governments and sony cops will no doubt have presence in every city (and yes they even talk about involvement of companies like sony and all the big ones in 'assisting with expertise in application of copyright protection').

[dank414 Posted Dec 27th 2009 11:23AM]

Richard, I take it you're a Naruto Otaku.

[Tohe Posted Dec 27th 2009 8:14PM]

Comcast has a horrible reputation. Consumers should just "opt out" of Comcast altogether.

[gaffnova44 Posted Dec 28th 2009 10:41AM]

oddly enough - bail for internet pirating is set at $16.01

[Dan Fruzzetti Posted Dec 29th 2009 10:42AM]

By receiving that check 90% of those people are incriminating themselves in a hardcore worse way. I know I've pulled several Ubuntu versions from torrents but I don't remember if that's really all in this time frame, so like many I will opt out.

Comcast isn't gonna spend a dime.