TorrentFreak is a blog

Blog

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

 dedicated to reporting the latest news on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing

File sharing

File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...

. TorrentFreak was started in November 2005 by a Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

man using the pseudonym "Ernesto Van Der Sar". He added "Smaran" to his staff in September 2006, as well as Andy "Enigmax" Maxwell in February 2007 and Ben Jones in May 2007.

According to Canadian law scholar Michael Geist

Michael Geist

Michael Allen Geist is a Canadian academic, and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. Geist was educated at the University of Western Ontario where he received his Bachelors of Laws before going on to get his Masters of Laws at both Osgoode Hall Law...

, TorrentFreak "is widely used as a source of original reporting on digital issues". Examples are The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

 and De Standaard

De Standaard

De Standaard is a Flemish daily newspaper published in Belgium by Corelio . Circulation was about 102.280 in 2007. It was traditionally a Christian-Democratic paper, associated with the Christian-Democratic and Flemish Party, and in opposition to the Socialist Flemish daily De Morgen...

.

TorrentFreak's contents are free content

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 under a Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...

 Attribution license.

Comcast BitTorrent throttling

On August 17, 2007 TorrentFreak reported that Comcast

Comcast

Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

 had begun throttling

Bandwidth throttling

Bandwidth throttling is a reactive measure employed in communication networks to regulate network traffic and minimize bandwidth congestion. Bandwidth throttling can occur at different locations on the network. On a local area network , a sysadmin may employ bandwidth throttling to help limit...

 its upload bandwidth, specifically against BitTorrent users. This made seeding, which is an essential part of the BitTorrent protocol, effectively impossible. It was later determined that Comcast was using Sandvine

Sandvine

Sandvine Incorporated , in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.Sandvine network policy control products are designed to implement broad network policies, ranging from service creation, billing, congestion management, and security...

 products which implement network traffic shaping and policing, and include support for both blocking new and forcefully terminating established network connections. Comcast

Comcast

Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

 has denied these claims whenever they have been asked to comment. A guide, for customer service representatives when asked about Comcast's BitTorrent throttling, was leaked to The Consumerist on October 26, 2007.