Comcast, the ISP-slash-cable company that has been in hot water for the past year for “managing” (i.e. blocking) P2P applications, has thrown down the gauntlet to the FCC. After eight months of denying that they were doing it at all, now they’re basically saying “yeah, we’re doing it, and you can’t stop us. Nyah, nyah!“

If an ISP cannot be legally forced to allow all network traffic through, that opens the door to any ISP arbitrarily blocking any content that they wish — services that interfere with their own offerings, services that compete with a partner’s offerings, even services that someone there just plain doesn’t like. It would change the Internet greatly, and not in a good way.

Fortunately, it looks like Comcast is on legally shaky ground. Let’s hope the courts agree, when (not if) it gets that far.