Google Leads the Charge on Internet Neutrality

So, it’s nice to know that even us small- and medium-sized fish in the online commerce pool have a 1000-pound gorilla on our side. (Make that shark, if we’re talking the deep and choppy waters of e-commerce.) Search giant Google is leading the charge on Net Neutrality. Google is building and releasing – for free – a set of tools that lets us ordinary commercial folk see how our access and traffic speed on The Internet (as well as our potential customers) is being managed. Or, blocked.

It’s not complicated:

· We all pay more for high-speed broadband connections, rather than slower broadband or DSL link ups to the “Information Superhighway.” Let’s not forget the slow-moving tortoise in this data race, dial-up connections. They still exist and they still move images, audio, email and web files. Just, you know, a lot slower.

· But no matter how speedy your Internet connection is, there are ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who sit between you, your computer access, and your customers and their Internet access. Over the past decade-plus, the ISPs squatting between points on the cyber web have become more consolidated, mergered, bigged and monopolized by a handful of cable and telecom companies. Those are The Throttlers … putting speed bumps and potholes in front of some kinds of Internet traffic unless the users pay ever more for the privilege of entering the highway without gridlock.

· Net Neutrality advocates – also involved in re-regulation of U.S. Internet access (not content) to break the monopoly gridlock, in cheaper and universally-accessible high-speed broadband, and in other Greatest-Good-For-Greatest-Number policies that some throw the “S” word at — Net Neutrality advocates have been fighting the good fight for years. They want all content on the Internet to be created equal and to offer equal access … regardless of your balance sheet, income bracket or how much you can spend to join the communications / commerce channel of this millennia.

· The “throttlers” (aforementioned controllers among ISPs, Cable and TeleCommunications companies) are not Net Neutrality advocates.

Enter the 1000-pound gorilla …

Google has developed a package of tools called Measurement Lab. It tests connection speeds on the Internet superhighway. It diagnoses slow downs, cyber-toll booths, bumps in the road, jam ups … versus … smooth rides granted to companies, groups and individuals who spend much more for their ride. (That’s called “tiered pricing” which sounds nice and not as anti-egalitarian as it really is.)

Net Neutrality advocate Google wants ordinary people to see whether or not their ISP is throttling their access, blocking “too much” usage (like for video content), and playing favorites with their customers on the sneak. Google is offering Measurement Lab for no cost.

Thanks, Google! The Big G’s timing could not be better: A brand new Obama Administration is a firm advocate of Net Neutrality. Build out of cheaper, faster, more widely accessible broadband Internet connections was put right in the middle of the new economic recovery stimulus package. There is a whole different kind of attitude ruling the regulators (FCC) and reporting to the President (brand new Chief Technology Officer).

See Throttling the Throttlers from the ECT News Staff and MacNewsWorld at the Weekly Recap >> Legal, with its hat tip to Citizen Google. Got to run. That PDF finally finished downloading and opening. (I’m on a dial-up. Sad, stubborn and slow; but true.)