Airtel, an Indian ISP, penalized for blocking a torrent site

Airtel was penalized by an institution similar to the small claims court. Airtel didn't contest the complaint. Most likely because it would cost them more in legal fees than the maximum penalty a "District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum" can reward (Rs100,000. Less than $2,000.)

I'm pretty sure that if there were more complaints filed against them, they would have contested it aggressively.

I had an Airtel 10GB/Month Airtel account for five months this year while in India travelling.

Drove me CRAZY that my video upload provider Vimeo was one of the blocked sites.

The court judgement is ambiguous as hell. It doesn't mention either the website or the software that the plaintiff had tried to download.

This is how they explained the situation -

"The complainant has taken network service connection for his mobile since 5 years and subscribed for GPRS service. He tried to download an application from website using his phone GPRS service through torrent."

Bittorrent through GPRS? Mind boggling.

Just $364? They should have fined it more.

In India the penalties are never high. Sometimes it takes 4 to 5 years to fight a case and just get $1000 to $1800 as compensation (if case is in the favour of plaintiff).