"Comcast fought the law and the law lost," wrote Topolski, chief technologist for the Open Technology Initiative of the New America Foundation, a think tank that has supported net neutrality rules. "Turns out that there is no cop on the beat to prevent Comcast, or any other ISP, from again blocking you from the content, applications, or services of your choice!"

The $16 settlement amounts to a rebate of about $0.50 a month to Comcast customers who had their broadband services slowed, he said.

"For two and a half years, Comcast secretly attacked its own customers' communications by blocking peer-to-peer uploads and other traffic," Topolski wrote on his blog. "By secretly blocking traffic and hoping that you wouldn't notice, Comcast took back some of the service that you paid for. Rather than adding capacity as demand increased, Comcast dropped some of your traffic to make room for its very profitable new phone service and millions of new customers."

The settlement, before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, stems from a lawsuit filed by California Comcast subscriber Jon Hart in November 2007. Comcast has set aside $16 million for the settlement.

Topolski called the settlement inadequate. "If that tiny amount of money is compensation, then there is no penalty to Comcast for interfering with its customers, for failing to disclose it, for repeatedly lying about it, and for taking so long to stop it!" he wrote.