Thanks!

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin today announced his intention to investigate blocking of peer-to-peer file-sharing services by Comcast and other Internet service providers. “Sure, we’re going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked…I tell the staff that they should act on all of those complaints and investigate all of them,” said Martin. But will the FCC Chairman keep his word?

“We hope the Chairman’s statements, made two months after we filed our complaint, will lead to immediate and accelerated action at the FCC on the critical issue of whether Comcast, AT&T and other Internet service providers can block the services people want to use,” said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press.

In October, an Associated Press exposé found that Comcast was secretly interfering with user access. This was later confirmed by an EFF report. In response, members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition filed a petition with the FCC calling upon the agency to take action against such net neutrality violations. In an accompanying complaint, Free Press and Public Knowledge asked the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber.

In another petition filed in December, members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition protested Verizon Wireless’s refusal to send text messages from NARAL Pro-Choice America. (Verizon later reversed its policy after a New York Times expose generated public outrage). The petition — filed by Public Knowledge, Free Press, U.S. PIRG, Media Access Project, Consumers Union and the New America Foundation — urged the FCC to prohibit cell phone companies from blocking or interfering with text messages sent over their networks. It also stated that cell phone companies should treat text messaging like spoken phone conversations — delivering all information to their customers without censorship.

As anyone knows who’s waited at home endlessly for the cable guy to show up — or been stuck on hold trying to report a problem — the term “Comcast customer service” is already pretty much an oxymoron.

So it’s amazing to watch how fast Comcast moves in the face of a PR crisis.

As you’ve hopefully heard by now, the Associated Press busted Comcast for blocking its users’ access to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like BitTorrent and Gnutella, among other applications. This fraudulent practice is a glaring violation of Net Neutrality.

The Consumerist got its hands on a memo Comcast HQ rushed out to its customer service centers with a simple message: deny, deny, deny.

Here’s an excerpt:

If a customer contacts us to inquire about this, please use the following talking points.

Comcast does not block access to any applications, including BitTorrent

We respect our customers’ privacy and we don’t monitor specific customer activities on the Internet or track individual online behavior, such as which websites they visit. Therefore, we do not know whether any individual user is visiting BitTorrent or any other site.

We have a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good experience online and we use the latest technologies to manage our network. This is standard practice for ISPs and network operators all over the world.

We rarely disclose our vendors or our processes for operating our network both for competitive reasons and to protect against network abuse.

That last paragraph is key. The memo goes on to give specific instructions on how to evade inquiries about Sandvine — the Canadian company whose technology makes such “traffic shaping” possible.

Sandvine’s Secret List

Tech journalist Om Malik has been looking into the company, and it seems its whole business is based on helping the big broadband providers block, interfere, manipulate and otherwise “pursue the broadband management objectives sought by that service provider.”

And Comcast certainly isn’t Sandvine’s only client. They claim eight of the top 20 U.S. broadband providers as customers. Malik writes:

Sandvine doesn’t identify its customers; it refers to them as Company A, B, C or whatever, but never by name. I guess that’s because this is potentially sensitive information and a potential PR disaster.

These companies clearly can’t be trusted. Congress needs to get to the bottom of which companies are using these technologies and for what ends. Bipartisan Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have already called for hearings into “content discrimination,” and they can’t happen soon enough.

It’s time to see both Comcast and Sandvine squirming in the hot seat. And here’s the first question: Why are you blocking your customers from downloading the Bible?

I don’t see an answer to that one in the talking points.

The good news is that it won’t take an act of God to fix this problem, just action from Congress.

What they must do has never been clearer: We need Net Neutrality now.