http://tlf.disqus.com/The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.enSat, 28 Feb 2009 20:42:19 -0000http://techliberation.com/2008/06/18/google-to-offer-broadband-users-tools-to-monitor-traffic-management-by-isps/#comment-6734815I know google is playing favorism with the search results. I'm not talking about the "sponsored links" content either. I discovered they were doing this when I temperarily suspended my campaigns and found that I no longer was my standard number 2 position in the non-sponsored results listing. Turn on my campaign again resulted in returning to the usual number 2 position in the "non-sponsored" results listing. I can understand why my changes would be different in the "sponsored links" lists but trumping my "relevancy" in the non-sponsored list is down right biased and almost like kidnapping or ransoming my info from the world. It just ain't right.Concerned OneSat, 28 Feb 2009 20:42:19 -0000http://techliberation.com/2008/06/18/google-to-offer-broadband-users-tools-to-monitor-traffic-management-by-isps/#comment-1454715Something is sadly missing from the commentary on Google's net neutrality stance in general and its tools in particular: an understanding of Google's motives.<br><br>As things currently stand, Google has high-priority access to ISP networks by virtue of its private network of server farms with low RTT access to ISP networks. Google, in other words, is on the fast lane and the conventional server is on the slow lane.<br><br>So the value of ISP added-value services, such as intra-ISP content caching and mirroring, is to reduce the value of the Google server network. Obviously, they don't want this to happen.<br><br>I'd like to develop a set of tools to test search neutrality, because I believe Google may be fudging search results in favor of customers who advertise with Google. I have no proof of this, but I've learned that wild and irresponsible speculation can be fun from the network neutrality debate. So my tool will track the correlation of ad buys with search ranking.<br><br>And the coolest thing about it is that a negative finding is just as bad for Google's business as a positive finding. <br><br>Transparency is wonderful.BubbaDudeThu, 19 Jun 2008 18:05:20 -0000http://techliberation.com/2008/06/18/google-to-offer-broadband-users-tools-to-monitor-traffic-management-by-isps/#comment-1454714Vendors of VPN, VoIP, and game software are likely to include neutrality-testing functionality, so that when a customer calls support to complain that an app is slow, the vendor can say, "that's not us, it's the cable company messing with you -- can't help you."<br><br>Software companies will never miss someone else to send a mad customer to.dmartiThu, 19 Jun 2008 11:20:03 -0000http://techliberation.com/2008/06/18/google-to-offer-broadband-users-tools-to-monitor-traffic-management-by-isps/#comment-1454713Amen, Alex! Competition among broadband providers certainly is perhaps the best possible option.bszokaThu, 19 Jun 2008 10:55:59 -0000http://techliberation.com/2008/06/18/google-to-offer-broadband-users-tools-to-monitor-traffic-management-by-isps/#comment-1454712I imagine that the principal upshot of Google's tools will be to reduce the potency of calls for net neutrality legislation by adding credibility to the argument that users can choose plans with network management practices that work best for them:<br><a href="http://www.openmarket.org/2008/06/16/google-creating-net-neutrality-monitoring-tools/" rel="nofollow">http://www.openmarket.org/2008/06/16/google-cre...</a>AlexHarrisThu, 19 Jun 2008 09:43:41 -0000