Google Battles ISPs With Technology
In the war between Google and Internet Service Providers, Google is trying a new weapon - information. The search giant has teamed up with New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and PlanetLab Consortium to create Measurement Labs, a server platform and a series of software tools to measure broadband speeds, whether or not your ISP is filtering BitTorrent traffic and a diagnostic tool for last-mile problems. Coming soon are tests to help a user figure out of their ISP is prioritizing certain traffic in the name of network management (sound familiar?), and if certain users are experiencing degraded traffic.
This may be a boon for consumers, but a look at the M-Labs privacy policy shows that its going to be a problem for ISPs. The site says, "The goal of the project is to analyze information regarding broadband networks and report this information to the public."
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