Comcast Says You Can Keep Your Tor

Reports that Comcast will deny Internet service to users of the Tor Internet browser are false, the company says in a new blog post. The browser lets users surf the web with a higher degree of anonymity, making it more difficult for hackers (or the government) to follow them around the Internet.

Comcast’s Jason Livingood wrote in today’s post:

Comcast is not asking customers to stop using Tor, or any other browser for that matter. We have no policy against Tor, or any other browser or software. Customers are free to use their Xfinity Internet service to visit any website, use any app, and so forth.

Here are the facts:

Comcast doesn’t monitor our customer’s browser software, web surfing or online history.

The anecdotal chat room evidence described in these reports is not accurate.

We respect customer privacy and security and only investigate and disclose certain information about a customer’s account with a valid court order or other appropriate legal process, just like other ISPs. More information about these policies can be found in our Transparency Report here.

We do not terminate customers for violating the Copyright Alert System (aka “six strikes”), which is a non-punitive, educational and voluntary copyright program. Read more here.

Livingood concluded: “Our customers can use Tor at any time, as I have myself. I’m sure many of them are using it right now.”