A lawsuit filed in Alameda County has accused cable-giant and Internet-service-provder Comcast of meddling with the Internet to block or slow down access to filesharing on the Internet.

A subscriber to Comcast living in the Bay Area, San Francisco, has alleged that Comcast has been limiting access to P2P filesharing service, such as Ares and Limewire.

Comcast’s claims of supplying lightning-fast Internet speeds have also been thrust into the spotlight.

Although a Comcast spokesman denied that the Internet service provider had been blocking P2P filesharing services, he went on to say that Comcast has the right to “prevent heavy users from slowing down speeds over the entire network”.

Essentially, the Comcast spokesman admitted that the company has been meddling. In a bizarre twist, the complaint has alleged that Comcast sends “hidden messages to computers that are running filesharing applications” to cause them to cease their operations.

What do you think? Comcast’s wary response points to something not being right here, but perhaps this conspiracy theory is a bit out there. It remains unclear why Comcast would restrict access to P2P services.

 Enjoyed this? Subscribe to the feed.