Comcast vendor sent cease-and-desist to operator of anti-Comcast website
Net neutrality website stays online as Comcast agrees to take no further action.
A Comcast vendor sent a cease-and-desist letter to the operator of "Comcastroturf.com," a website that helps people find out if their names were used by bots that have flooded the Federal Communications Commission with anti-net neutrality comments.
Fight for the Future, the advocacy group that operates the site, issued a press release accusing Comcast of censorship and posted an image of the letter that accuses the group of trademark infringement. The letter was sent by LookingGlass Cyber Security Center on behalf of its client, Comcast, and demands that Fight for the Future "take all steps necessary to see that the Domain Name [Comcastroturf.com] is assigned to Comcast."
The Comcastroturf website violates a law against "using domain names that are identical or confusingly similar to someone else's trademark," the letter said.
"Our client is... prepared to resolve this matter amicably and without pursuing its claims for damages, but only if you immediately comply with its demands," the letter said.
Despite the threatening letter, Comcast told Ars that it has decided not to take any further action.
Fight for the Future argued that court precedent holds that "sites critical of a company’s practices could not be considered trademark infringement." The Comcastroturf website describes how spammers have submitted anti-net neutrality comments to the FCC using names and addresses taken from data breaches, and suggests that Comcast might be behind the effort.
"If companies like Comcast are funding this type of illegal activity, their customers and the general public deserve to know about it," the website says. "If they’re not funding it, they should condemn these fake comments and tell the FCC to disregard them."
Comcastroturf also lets people search the FCC's net neutrality docket for their own names, to help them determine whether their names have been used without their knowledge.
Comcast criticizes site, but won't take further action
When contacted by Ars, Comcast did not apologize for the letter and criticized the Comcastroturf website. But the company has decided not to pursue the claim any further. Comcast said:
Quote:
Like most major brand owners, Comcast protects our company and brand names from being used improperly on the Internet by third parties. We use an established outside vendor to monitor for websites that use our name and brands without authorization, and the vendor routinely sends out notices to those sites. That is what happened here. This particular site also raised other legal issues supporting further investigation (for example, the site appears to collect personal information and has no posted privacy policy). After reviewing the site further, we do not plan additional action at this time.
Greer told Ars that the website function that lets people search the FCC's docket does not collect any personal information. The Comcastroturf site also has a form for contacting the attorney general to demand an investigation into astroturfing, but clicking through to this form displays a link to a privacy policy.
Comcast's statement also said that while the company opposes the use of the FCC's Title II authority to impose net neutrality rules, "Comcast supports strong, legally enforceable net neutrality rules and does not and will not block websites or content. Title II does not equal net neutrality." Comcast said.
Like other net neutrality advocates, Greer disagrees.
"Regarding Comcast's statement, they are just repeating their misleading talking point claiming that they support net neutrality but oppose Title II," Greer told Ars. "The courts have been clear that Title II is the legally sound way to enforce net neutrality protections, and these protections are necessary because of the long history of ISPs abusing their power. Comcast wants the power to be able to charge sites fees in order to reach an audience—that's why they're trying to get rid of Title II. They can claim otherwise all they want, but the public isn't going to be fooled."
As we've written, the FCC's first attempt at imposing net neutrality rules was overturned by a federal appeals court. The FCC's net neutrality rules were finally upheld in court only after the commission reclassified ISPs as common carriers under Title II. But now that the FCC majority has changed from Democrats to Republicans, the commission has begun the process of overturning the Title II classification. This could eliminate the current rules that prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.
The FCC is accepting comments on the docket until August 16, and will make a final decision sometime after that.
