FCC & Comcast: Put up or shut up

Those of you following the "net neutrality" debate are probably aware of the shenanigans of Comcast with regard to throttling Bittorent, as originally reported by the Associated Press. Today, advocacy groups took it to the FCC, filing a complaint against Comcast and a petition that the FCC enforce its own stated Net Neutrality principles, or explain why they're not going to do it.

The petition was filed by Free Press, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Barbara von Shewick of Stanford Law School and the Stanford Center for Internet & Society.

For background and some insightful commentary, see Harold Feld's blog Tales of the Sausage Factory on Wetmachine.com.

Harold is a lawyer for the Media Access Project, one of the parties to the complaint, and he gives a good analyis of the reasoning behind the complaint and the petition.

If you believe that the principle of net neutrality is central to preserving (what's left of) our democracy in the internet age (I do), then this development could be key.  Either the FCC will enforce its own rules, or it will be proved to be full of beans.  In either case, we can be grateful that these citizen-activists have taken appropriate legal action.  And I'm further grateful that Harold blogs so imformatively about what's going on behind the scenes.