Ruh-ro:
The celebrated openness of the Internet -- network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic -- is quietly losing powerful defenders.
Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.
At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same -- nobody is supposed to jump the line.
Read the rest.
4 comments:
We must also remember that google is not neutral itself. Although many people believe that the top "hits" for any given google search are what are determined to be "most relevant," many times they are actually not. One is able to PAY google so that their website/link comes up as the first (or one of the first) "hits" for specified searches.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081215/tec_google_net_neutrality.html?.v=2
Ah, the problems of reporting.
Yet the WSJ stands by the story. Perhaps they got it wrong, or perhaps Google backed off when they saw the eruption of BlogLand? A corporate trial balloon?
More here: http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/12/google-blasts-w.html
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