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"Want to know if/when your ISP is shorting your broadband connection through network manipulation known as throttling? Google is working to give you what you need to determine those very things. So said the company\u2019s senior policy director Richard Whitt earlier this week at a discussion at Santa Clara University.\nAs quoted by Cade Metz of The Register, Whitt explained that Google is \u201Ctrying to develop tools, software tools...that allow people to detect what's happening with their broadband connections, so they can let [ISPs] know that they're not happy with what they're getting - that they think certain services are being tampered with.\u201D\nGoogle has let known its official views on the issue of Net neutrality numerous times in the past, and many citizens understanding of the basic technical aspects of tiered and restricted Internet access propositions have largely fallen the side of the Mountain View-based company. Another notable proponent of equal access on the Web is Stanford University professor Lawrence Lessing, who is also well-known as the founder of Creative Commons.\nThe idea behind Google\u2019s effort now to put local monitoring systems on users\u2019 PCs to gauge for network throttling is quite simple, as told by director Whitt, \u201CIf the broadband providers aren\u2019t going to tell you exactly what\u2019s happening on their networks, we want to give users the power to find out for themselves.\u201D\nOf course, a good amount of scrutiny as to users\u2019 privacy rights is bound to be levied by advocates who envision it Internet tracking systems built for a variety of purpose, some suspected to be invasive of fundamental stipulations of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights.\nAs for argumentative balance, Whitt was joined by four other individuals on stage at the second assembly of the Media Access Project\u2019s Innovation \u201908 forum, including Jay Monahan, general counsel for Vuze Inc, which also has made no secret of its wish to keep networks neutral and open; Ronald B. Yokubaitis, chairman and CEO of Data Foundry; Richard Bennett; and George Ou of Technology for Mortals.\nBennett and Ou carried the pro-throttle line for the session. Ou was quoted as saying, \u201CIf you forbid prioritization, you forbid converged networks. And if you forbid converged networks, you get a bunch of tiny networks that are designed to do very specific things. Why not merge them into one fat pipe and let the consumer pick and choose what they want to run? Net neutrality forbids consumer choice. The consumer can't say 'Please prioritize.\u201D"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/06/14/google-isp-monitors/>