Comcast Subscribers Get $16 Each for P2P

By Jane McEntegart
published

A class action lawsuit filed against Comcast in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has resulted in a settlement that entitles certain Comcast users between April 1, 2006 and December 31, 2008 to $16.

In 2007, John Hart of California filed a suit against Comcast when he noticed the company limited "the speed of certain internet applications such as peer-to-peer file sharing and lotus notes [sic]."

Ars Technica reports that a proposed settlement of $16 million has been approved and finalized and Comcast subscribers who used Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack, or Gnutella will receive $16 if they file a claim before August 29, 2010.

All those individual payments of $16, plus $3 million for the lawyers who worked on the case, amounts to a settlement total of $16 million.

Read full details of the suit on Ars. Details on claiming can be found here.

41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • klavis
    They should have to pay a lot more, it was a breach of contract, they should pay for the contract being broken, not a token amount.
    Reply
  • ragequit
    $16.00 for "victims" and $3 million for lawyers, thats funny. They are not really victims I know, but how messed up is the legal system in the states that it takes 3 years to settle a lawsuit like this. Maybe ISP's need to up their game so they don't have to worry about heavy traffic.
    Reply
  • Assmar
    Sounds like when they have a big boat giveaway and only people with arrest warrants are invited as winners.
    Reply
  • mlopinto2k1
    ragequit$16.00 for "victims" and $3 million for lawyers, thats funny. They are not really victims I know, but how messed up is the legal system in the states that it takes 3 years to settle a lawsuit like this. Maybe ISP's need to up their game so they don't have to worry about heavy traffic.As much as you "expect" to be served with the utmost service, you do realize there are millions of users surfing the internet every second of everyday? Seriously, go check out how it works. Maybe, just maybe, you'll have a newly earned respect for the communications division. People make mistakes and they are paying back to the community.
    Reply
  • Lmfao at 3 mil for the lawyers. Cant live without em, but the world would be so much better if they didnt exist at the same time.
    Reply
  • sceen311
    If only comcast could've come clean and admitted they made a mistake, they could've saved $3million.
    Reply
  • kelemvor4
    Lame. 3 Million each would have been an appropriate penalty for comcast.
    Reply
  • wawa sxm
    the us justice system has never been about victims just money...the only winners are lawyers...why cases like these arent battle by consumer groups with the proceeds being invested in ie.better access to internet i dt know.....these lawsuits rarely benefits the victim and always the lawyer.
    Reply
  • tokenz
    mlopinto2k1As much as you "expect" to be served with the utmost service, you do realize there are millions of users surfing the internet every second of everyday? Seriously, go check out how it works. Maybe, just maybe, you'll have a newly earned respect for the communications division. People make mistakes and they are paying back to the community.
    Let me guess you work for Comcast. Tell Comcast to invest in their infrastructure. And it wasnt a mistake it was against the contract that they wrote. It was a breech of contract and they should have had to pay alot more than 16million.
    Reply
  • shin0bi272
    3 mil for the lawyers and 16 bucks for each actual victim.... Tort reform anyone?
    Reply