FCC rules against Comcast's illegal BitTorrent throttling

In a surprising case of a governmental agency not caving to corporate suggestions, a small victory has been won for those who enjoy a free Internet. 

As you may have read here on Neoseeker, Comcast has been throttling BitTorrent traffic for some time now, and have been less than forthcoming about their actions with the public. But this throttling will soon come  to an end, thanks to a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission this week.

The FCC found that Comcast's limiting of P2P traffic was arbitrarily enforced, and went against the principles of Internet communication.

This ruling might of not have happened if it weren't for the actions of a guy named Marvin Ammori. He is the "general counsel" of the Free Press -- a non-profit organization that promotes a democratic free press by arguing against excessive consolidation of media organizations by corporations, and more recently, the tenets of network neutrality. Marvin Ammori was the person who filed the complaint against Comcast to the FCC, which resulted in their investigation in the matter -- so, all thanks to him, you Comcasters now have a lot 'ammori' bandwidth to play with (I'm sorry, could not resist.)

Here's what Mr. Ammori said about the FCC ruling, as quoted by the Torrent Freak news service: “Nine months ago, Comcast was exposed for blocking free choice on the Internet. At every turn, Comcast has denied blocking, lied to the public and tried to avoid being held accountable. We have presented an open and shut case that Comcast broke the law. The FCC now appears ready to take action on behalf of consumers. This is an historic test for whether the law will protect the open Internet. If the commission decisively rules against Comcast, it will be a remarkable victory for organized people over organized money."

A possible downside to this legal victory might be a sort of retribution from Comcast: given this ruling, they might now suggest that providing unlimited bandwidth to people is financially untenable. Perhaps they will take this ruling as license to raise prices, or lower bandwidth caps.