Network Neutrality Defenders Quietly Backing Off? 171
SteveOHT writes "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. The story claims that Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon have quietly withdrawn from a coalition of companies and groups backing network neutrality (the coalition is not named), though Amazon's name is reportedly once again listed on the coalition's Web site. Google has already responded, calling the WSJ story "confused" and explaining that they're only talking about edge caching, and remain as committed as ever to network neutrality. The blogosphere is alight with the debate.
Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm glad that Slashdot restores the truth with accurate headlines
I'm glad that this is rated funny, but considering the damage that this disinformation, deliberate or not, can cause to the principle of net neutrality, I suggest that we discuss here on Slashdot the ways to make the Wall Street Journal accountable for this dirty info bomb. Let's leverage Slashdot and the Net to turn the table and question the origin of this story. I know: "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence". Well, if it is only incompetence, let's expose the idiot who wrote this story and if it is something else, let's find out.
Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had a suspicion for a while now that the number of comments a story gets ties into Slashdot's revenue stream somehow. Not quite sure what the specifics might be - maybe ad revenue based on page hits or something, but the unsubtle and often pathetically trollish comments the editors ad to some stories are obviously an attempt to stir up lots of argument and comments. If it's not based on revenue, then it's either boredom or social experiment, but it definitely is deliberate.
Re:Foes or Advocates? (Score:3, Interesting)
This ISN'T insightful.
This isn't backing out. If you understood what Net Neutrality actually meant, you'd understand that this is quite a bit different.
In the Google story, all they're doing is putting dumb bit shovels closer to you.
In the thing that people for 'net neutrality' are talking about, the ISP gives higher priority to the content THEY provide and unless you pay tribute to each ISP, they do nothing or actually degrade your priority, meaning you stuff gets to you slower or not at all- depending on whether it's the ISP's crap or your content provider paid their danegeld.
Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's a theory for giggles:
The quality and relevance of content on any given blog is proportional to its distance from the source of the original information and the author's mastery of the subject. Proper grammar and spelling are taken as a prerequisite to any high quality communication.
Good: Blogging from inside companies about company politics, activities and product development. Blogging from inside or about any source of information from an initial source that has competence and a threshold level of insight about that original information.
Bad: "Journalism" about press releases and product announcements. Blogging commentary on said articles. Blogging on blogs that got the wrong title for an article that has a false premise. Blogging about said blogs regarding how it's all wrong and you have it right. Blog of contending prejudice blogging about how the other blog is wrong.
Neutral: Posting an article to /. about how the blog world is afire over said issue.
Thoughts? I'm not trying to troll; just empty theorizing about something that bugs me.
Re:So Google pays money to the ISPs... (Score:1, Interesting)
ISPs would have had a huge amount of off-network bandwidth to pay for (or negotiate in peering agreements) and likely had to upgrade some backbone capacity for.
You see, this move relieves the ISPs from upgrading backbone capacity. The network doesn't get faster and the content hosters will eventually have to negotiate with many end-user ISPs to provide an acceptable user experience. q.e.d.