Reported by Donna Higgins of Andrews Publications on Findlaw Legal Technology Ctr.
A 6th Circuit Panel affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Michigan District for dismissing a suit by Comcast broadband users for alleged privacy violations.
The 6th Circuit panel relied on a prior U.S. Supreme Court holding that broadband is an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service” — even if the data travels over the same wire as cable television.
The information collected by Comcast from users included ip addresses, websites visited, email messages, files downloaded. The information could be cross-referenced with other customer records maintained by Comcast to link particular customer accounts to particular ip addresses.
The events which gave rise to the original complaint occurred between December, 2001 and February, 2002.
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