SAN FRANCISCO, July 8, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Judge Legrome Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has given final approval to a class-action settlement involving Comcast's "throttling" of Internet service, bringing the suit to its final stage. Customers whose service was affected have until August 29 to file claims in order to receive their portion of the settlement.
In 2007, Comcast began "throttling" service to its customers who were using certain peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services, resulting in slowdowns and interruptions for as many as 1 million customers. The company eventually admitted that they were in fact slowing and even blocking some P2P sessions.
Jon Hart, a Comcast customer in California, filed a class-action lawsuit against the company. This latest ruling in Hart v. Comcast paves the way for payment of claims without the need for a lengthy trial. "Whatever the outcome after trial," the judge wrote in his ruling, "litigation likely would continue for months if not years through post-trial motions and appeal." That prospect has now been avoided. As Judge Davis noted, "this settlement would make the Hart action the first – and to date the only – P2P action to recover so much as a penny from anyone for anyone."
According to the terms of the settlement, Comcast is required to pay up to $16 million to customers who were affected by the throttling. Comcast subscribers who were affected by Comcast's throttling now have until August 29, 2010 to file a claim on the settlement administrator's web site (p2pcongestionsettlement.com).
"The settlement is a great result for Comcast's customers," said Mark Todzo, an attorney with Lexington Law Group, the public interest law firm representing Hart in the suit. "But customers will only get their share of the $16 million if they file a claim."
In early discussions about the settlement, some misinformation could be seen in comment threads on technology sites; for instance, some commenters alleged that by filing claims, customers were admitting to downloading pirated material. "That's absolutely false," says Todzo. "Millions of people use P2P protocols for legitimate, legal purposes, and when you file a claim in this case, all you're saying is that you used these protocols and believe your service may have been slowed down."
Any current or former Comcast customer who used the Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack or Gnutella P2P protocols any time from April 1, 2006 to December 31, 2008 and was unable to share files, or believes that the speed at which files were shared was affected, is eligible to file a claim. Customers who were unable to use Lotus Notes to send emails any time from March 26, 2007 to October 3, 2007 are also eligible.