(Washington, D.C.) - Today, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that Comcast’s actions toward the BitTorrent P2P application violated one of the Commission’s Net neutrality policies. The following statement may be attributed to Chris Wolf and Mike McCurry, co-chairs of the Hands Off the Internet coalition (HandsOff.org):

“Federal policy should protect Net users’ access to the open Internet in a way that doesn’t bog down enforcement in red tape or hinder investments that will improve the Internet for all consumers. Today’s action demonstrates why we do not need a cumbersome new set of federal mandates enacted into law.”

The Hands Off the Internet coalition is a Washington, DC-based coalition of companies and nonprofit organizations that believes the Internet has flourished because government has not tried to regulate it. Members include Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Qwest, 3M, the National Association of Manufacturers, FiberControl, and Cinergy Communications. Nonprofit members include Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Black Chamber of Commerce.