Comcast's $16 million web-slowdown accord approved

Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable company, won final approval of a $16 million settlement of consumers' claims that it intentionally delayed some file transfers over its high-speed Internet service.

U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis in Philadelphia yesterday said the accord, which gives customer who had file transfers that were slowed to a crawl on Comcast's system as much as $16 apiece, is the first under which an Internet service provider is paying to resolve so-called data-bias claims. About 1 million Comcast users might have claims under the settlement.

"It's the first and only monetary settlement of one of these cases," the judge said.

Customers sued Philadelphia-based Comcast in November 2007 alleging it slowed or delayed attempts to download files using applications including Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack or Gnutella for transferring movie and audio files.

The settlement fund will be distributed to customers who used the targeted applications between 2006 and 2008 and who file a claim, according to court filings.

Lawyers for Comcast told Davis the company believed the steps it took to regulate the transfer of large files within its network were reasonable. The cable provider decided to settle the case to "move on," said Seamus Duffy, one of the company's attorneys.

The case is In Re Comcast Corp. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Transmission Contract Litigation, 08-1992 U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).

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