Broadband forum: I Found Big Brother and His Name Is COMCAST

lets see she dowmloads music unlawfully, and there isp can be sued and your upset that they turned info over.

i hope all who do that pay fines and thats why laws are made

and as im to understand if the isps dont turn over the names they get fined.
and if thats the case then there rates go up, then my rates go up.
seems to me theres an honest way and the crocked way.

of course thats just my views

and my feelings are this not directed at you if you steal stuff which d/l songs with out buying where its not legal you deserve to pay any and all penaltys

If they were handed a court order for the info I wouldn't have a problem with them handing it over, but to willing hand over personal info is dead wrong. There should be some very strick penalties for anybody that willing hands over private info.

Hope the user sues their butts off and wins big. Maybe she can pay off her downloading fines with a settlement from Comcast?

I'm getting in on this discussion very late, but in the event you're still reading any of this-thank you for an intelligent answer! I don't even care if I agree with you-although I do.
It seems to me that 1/2 the problem in this country is that too much television, sugar, fat and easy living have made America stupid! No one seems to think about anything any more; they just hop on the week's most popular bandwagon and go back to watching "24." (Good show, but isn't Kiefer Sutherland just a bit too much like Jack Lord on the old "Hawaii Five-O" series? Maybe it's just me..Plus, I am probably dating myself badly!) No offense, guys, but many of YOU are too lazy to even check your spelling or punctuate sentences anymore!

Anyway, of course this has nothing to do with what the woman did-she did nothing to Comcast! The violation of people's privacy rights is escalating daily-and it's not just fly-by-night identity thieves doing it--it's also huge institutions like BofA and that other company (I cannot remember the name right now) that just sold the personal information, INCLUDING SS#'s, of millions of people to scam artists pretending to be legitimate business people (again-no one seems to be asking WHY they were selling social security numbers to ANYONE!). What's worse-"stealing" some songs off the Internet or betraying the trust of millions of your customers? You better believe if Comcast betrayed this woman so willingly they are selling YOUR information, too, to anyone who will pay their price.

Big Brother is here-but it's not just Comcast. It's every big company in America-from the US Government on down. If you don't believe me, subscribe to the free "Direct Marketing News" for a few months; it will FLOOR you what information these folks have to sell-and do sell-every day.
Kathie C.

Maybe you have a point, however I personally think broadband internet is so helpful, even necessary for life and work in the 21st century that it needs more protections such as net neutrality, privacy laws, etc.If ISPs only give you service if you sign a contract waiving your right to privacy, then in practice it's not worse than not having the privacy anyway. There usually are only 2-3 broadband providers in an area, and since they pretty much all have the same disclaimers you're out of luck.

Telecom companies would never get away with making you sign a phone contract saying, by the way if we suspect you're doing any suspicious, we reserve the right to listen to your phone conversations at any time. Well, your emails, messages, and other internet activity shouldn't be any different.

The real criminals are the lawyers.
Do you think a dime of that settlement money is
seen by the artists??? I don't think so. It's just
fueling the lawyers war chest.

This isn't Comcast's first abuse of consumers rights
by deceptive business practices.
They did bandwidth monitoring last year and sent notices
to users they felt were using too much bandwidth, but
they refuse to say what the limit is.
I hope the person who got burned by Comcast canceled
all of their services.

BTW: Some universities were asked to divulge some student
names for the same thing and they told the lawyers that
would violate the privacy of their students.

Comcast is not complicit in the "criminal" activity. They are providing a service just like the Post Office or the phone companies. Has a phone company ever been prosecuted for the activities of criminals who may have conspired to commit or even committed crimes on the phone? Was the Post Office ever convicted in aiding and abetting the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski? The post office may have assisted in his capture, but it wasn't the post office that turned him in.

The RIAA is only using the fact that the technology used in this medium affords those who wish to do so, easily track and exploit the information that travels thoughout the internet. Just because Comcast and the RIAA have the ability "spy" on your internet activity, does not give them the right to do so. We must insure that the same right to privacy we have with the phone and the post office extends to the internet. Or else we as a freedom loving people should have no part of it.

The RIAA is only looking for an easy, cheap and unethical method of stuffing their pockets at the expense of everyone's right to privacy.

I do believe that the reason the write wrote this to all of us is really to remind us that big companies do not hold your information as a customer in privacy.

If you went ahead and read the article, that states that Comcast 'wasn't directed by a court' to divulge that particular person's name and address to another company/entity.

The fact that teenagers download things from the internet is not fiction but fact. They grew up in this generation of freely available music and other items. The internet is still largely an untamed continent so to speak, sort of like the wild wild west of the 1850's. Is it right that this is going on? I think that is open to great debate, but the issue is a company who is receiving money from you and then divulging information about you that they shouldn't perhaps.

Say you watched XXX movies on your cable company's digital ordering service. A company like a newspaper or magazine requested that the cable company provides a list of all names and how many times the person watched XXX movies? And then published this list on some website or newspaper or other means of using the data? Is this unethical.. Or is it something else?

Whether the user was doing something illegal or not, Comcast does not have the right to turn over private information! If they feel the user was doing something illegal they have the right to close down that users service. But oh, they'd lose the subscribers fee.

Comcast should err on the side of their subscribers, not just hand personal info over to anybody who asks.

Like someone stated in another answer, what's to keep Comcast from releasing more damaging info about their users??

Dark Phalanx,

Do you have some valuable, undisclosed information that can help clarify things? If so, please show us the supporting evidence for your remark, "I agree that Comcast had all the right to do what they did..." I haven't yet seen any evidence in this topic to support it. Until such evidence comes to light, you're all just guessing or wishing.

We consider the personally identifiable information contained in our business records to be confidential. We may sometimes disclose personally identifiable information about you to our affiliates or to others who work for us. We may also disclose personally identifiable information about you to service providers and vendors, and to others who provide products and services to us. For example, when you use certain functions on this website you may notice that the website actually collecting or processing the information may be other than a Comcast website. We may be required by law or legal process to disclose certain personally identifiable information about you to lawyers and parties in connection with litigation and to law enforcement personnel. For example, we may be required by law to disclose personally identifiable information about you without your consent and without notice in order to comply with a valid legal process such as a subpoena, court order, or search warrant.

That should explain things pretty clear as to what your rights are when you sign up to use an ISP's service. (Typical contract wording).

Buried in the standard contract is the warning: Don't do anything illegal.
If you do, Comcast has the "right" to turn you in.
Don't people read what they sign?
I'll bet your ISP, if you pay to the access to the Internet, has a similar set of clauses. Thus a person signing such, signs away many aspects of their "right to privacy".

under current constitutional rights to privacy, no company or government agency can offer or make available information about private citezens activities
withwithout due proccess- example


im joe shmoe incorporated small buisiness, and im monitoring a p2p network for infringment of my intilectual property when i think i see an infringer, so i note the ip adress and the time and goto
myisp.isp to retrieve there info- now should myisp.isp give me there info?


the answer is no, given the state of p2p services and the routing abilities they have, it is very hard toprove illegal downloading without physical evidence( the computer in question) secondly, in the usa, all such maters are supposed to be pure accusation untill proven in court, meaning that the aleged infringer is protected by constitutional law untill a suit is file under the DMCA( if you dont know what this is your in the wrong forum). myisp can stop providing services to said infringer if it cunducts its on investigation on infringer based on accusations from a 3rd party, but it cannot simply handout customer information to anyone who claims to hold a grievance untill legal action is taken, and a supeana is submitted to them ordering them to hand it over


in the case of comcast handing information out to a corperation without user consent or notice based soley on an acusation by that third party without legal action and supeana, comcast has violated congretional rights of one of its user soley to please a corperation

now before anyone reads this far and says''but what about the user agreament said infringer sighned''? remember no agreement or contract is valid in this country(usa) if it violates in whole or in part any local state or federal law including the congretional right to privacy

comcast had a clearly defined responsability to protect its users information, regarless of third party accusation( it is for the courts to decide if a violation has been made, not the mpaa or iraa, they are not a judge or jury)untill due proccess by court of law required them to turn said information over,
REGARDLESS OF WETHER SAID INFRINGER ACTUALY VIOLATED COPYRIGHTS OR NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


aparently in this case, if a private company knows enough people in high places, and has enough money, they can throw law and ethics to the wind at the expenss of consumers

OK, here is the relevant piece of the Privacy Statement: "We may be required by law or legal process to disclose certain personally identifiable information about you to lawyers and parties in connection with litigation and to law enforcement personnel. For example, we may be required by law to disclose personally identifiable information about you without your consent and without notice in order to comply with a valid legal process such as a subpoena, court order, or search warrant. "

Neither in this passage nor elsewhere within the Privacy Statement do they state that they may VOLUNTARILY disclose your personal info to lawyers or law enforcement personnel. If there was ongoing litigation (which it sounds like there was not) then the info could be turned over. If there was a valid legal process such as a court order or search warrant (which it sounds like there was not) then the info could be turned over. It seems to me that Comcast has made a breach of contract by voluntarily disclosing the personal info. It is irrelevant whether or not Comcast knew the customer MIGHT be in violation of the law. Even if there is evidence that the customer was doing probably illegal downloads, the customer is INNOCENT OF A CRIME UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW!
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>>>>>>>Let's repeat this very important point:
INNOCENT OF A CRIME UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.
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I suspect the Comcast Terms of Service (TOS) spells out their right to terminate service to a customer SUSPECTED of illegal activity, or maybe even explicitly states that circumventing the payment system of downloadable materials providers is cause for termination of service. An maybe the TOS spells out that the Privacy Statement is void if the customer is SUSPECTED of illegal activities. But who knows; the TOS wasn't presented in this topic to be able to check it.

It was stated earlier that Comcast could be subject to fines if they didn't turn over the info. We need to see what the LAW says here, not what we might WISH it to be. Would they be liable for fines in this case where no legal proceedings occurred? Of course it makes sense to fine Comcast if they don't comply with a valid legal process. It makes no sense to fine them if law enforcement simply REQUESTED the info and Comcast refused to divulge it.

In a nutshell, Comcast violated their own Privacy Statement, thereby violating the customer's rights. The customer SHOULD sue Comcast to help protect the rest of freedom-loving Americans from having their rights to privacy and freedom chipped away. If Comcast, or someone else wishes to file suit against the customer, DO IT! Then the Privacy Statement enables the legal system to get to the info.