FCC Head Kevin Martin Recommends Action Against Comcast

You've all heard the story a bajillion times -- that Comcast was secretly slowing the traffic of people who were using file sharing networks. These networks, which, in addition to many legal activities, are also used to download music and other media illegally, are big consumers of bandwidth.

Comcast's action was plainly designed to reduce the amount of bandwidth these users consumed. Problem is, they sold the service as unlimited access, and reducing bandwidth for certain activities is a violation of the principle of net neutrality.

This Huffington Post article on the FCC action highlights the central role that Robb Topolski played in this win. Topolski, who has more recently published a report about ISP targeting firm NebuAd, was the man who discovered Comcast's secret slowing activity.

His proof of this activity quickly spread throughout the web and was one of the early rallying points for broader consumer interest in net neutrality, a concept that confuses many consumers.

Mr. Topolski first discovered Comcast's activity when he was sharing legal music files from his own barbershop quartet. His report begat other reports, and today strong government action.

Here's some of his testimony to the FCC on this topic.

Expect DC to get pretty noisy over this.

And let it serve all of us in marketing and tech as a lesson. Beyond the many many obvious advantages of always telling the truth and being transparent, there's another reason not to do things like this in secret: truth always outs online.

I am sure Robb is feeling mighty good tonight. In the words of HuffPost: "...it all started with one person." What particularly tickles me is that barbershop music has led to profound government action in the technology sector. The Buffalo Bills would be proud. ;-)

I pride myself on my scrounging abilities online. But try as I might I could not find any Funchords music to place here so you could hear what started it all. But I did find this silly Family Guy barbershop song (It's off color. For those who prefer to avoid such things, just bypass that play button.) Otherwise, enjoy.



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