Monday, June 16, 2008
Network Neutrality & Google
“If the broadband providers aren’t going to tell you exactly what’s happening on their networks,” Whitt told The Reg, “we want to give users the power to find out for themselves.” --www.theregister.co.uk
Back in May I ran across a link to a site that allowed users to test whether their ISPs were throttling connections to specific sites. It was a German sitethat I never was able to connect to—first the servers were full, now it’s gone.
Friday Google announced that it is working on software to allow users to find out just this information.
There have been some observers pointing out that Google would benefit from this by retaining a stronghold on searches, because in a world where people fear they are being watched a competitor could create a masked search engine. I have little doubt everything done in the Internet is already being logged and watched in some way. My concern lies more in the area of ISPs accepting payment for restricting access to specific sites.
Google has been coming out with some spectacular programs lately. I was on the fence when the company went public, but so far I do appreciate the new bells and whistles being offered. When they do release this tool, I’ll be jumping to test it.
