[ISN] Comcast sued for disclosing customer info

http://news.com.com/Comcast+sued+for+disclosing+customer+info/2100-1030_3-5671438.html

By Reuters
April 14, 2005

Comcast, the top U.S. cable TV network operator, is being sued by a
Seattle-area woman for disclosing her name and contact information,
court records showed Thursday.

In a lawsuit filed in King County, Wash., Dawnell Leadbetter said that
she was contacted by a debt collection agency in January and told to
pay a $4,500 for downloading copyright-protected music or face a
lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Leadbetter, a mother of two teenage children, was a customer of
Comcast's high-speed Internet access service.

The company, Settlement Support Center, based in Washington state, was
using information that the Recording Industry of Association of
America had obtained in a Philadelphia lawsuit over the illegal
sharing of digital music files, said Lory Lybeck, the lawyer
representing Leadbetter.

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.

The RIAA has filed thousands of lawsuits since September and settled
several hundred for about $3,000 each.



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