But no court authorized Comcast to release names and addresses of its
> customers, or notified his client that her information had been given
> to an outside party, Lybeck said. "Comcast should respect the
> rights of privacy who pay them monthly bills," Lybeck said.
> Representatives from Comcast said they could not immediately comment > on the lawsuit.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If, in fact, Comcast was legally subpoened
> for the information, then they _had_ to give it out, or face penalties
> themselves. I assume that is the case,
Why do you assume that, when the article clearly says "But no court authorized Comcast to release names and addresses"?
Barry Margolin, snipped-for-privacy@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The reason I assume that, Barry, is because otherwise there are inconsistencies in the report. We know that the recording industry is very fond of blind lawsuits; i.e. John Doe 1 through John Doe 1^19 and every John Doe in between. They say that is needed since ISP's will not help them without _first suing and obtaining a subpoena_. I believe they did the same thing in this case. If they didn't, how did they arrive at her name, by asking Comcast 'pretty please'? I know what the article said, but somehow I feel the reporter was misinformed by the lady's lawyer and did not investigate further. After all, the recording people had no way of knowing that Comcast would just turn over; no other ISP's to date have cooperated. And once the subpoena is there, that's all the 'authorization' Comcast needed, right? PAT]