This is nothing more than QoS for their Network
Cox wants to treat their whole network like a large scale business with tools that have long been available to Network Admin. I understand that this seems a bit unfair and will probably invoke anger from many, however used properly this could be very useful to a company trying to get the most out of an overly taxed and outdated system (coax cabling). Until fiber becomes the norm, this kind of step up will be required in the antiquated technology environment Cox is living in. The days of overselling bandwidth and offering "unlimited" services has come back and bit them. With multimedia becoming more and more prominent on the Web this is going to be implemented by more companies even if the customers object.
The black helicopter, because some people will see a conspiracy behind everything! This is nothing more than greed finally coming to a head. Cox really should be upgrading/have already upgraded its network instead of blaming P2P.