Google's compromise on net neutrality; IE users exposed to malicious code; BitTorrent venture funding drying up

Has Google Flipped on 'Network Neutrality'? [Multichannel News - Bit Rate]

The blogosphere has been buzzing for the past day about an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal  that reveals that Google may not be willing to compromise their purest net neutrality position that the company adheres to. In a nutshell, the WSJ article revealed that Google is attempting to broker agreements with ISPs to place its OpenEdge caching servers within ISP networks, allowing for the fastest delivery of Google content, like high definition YouTube videos.

Despite the fact that the idea sounds like it's good for Google, good for ISP's and good for consumers, does it mean that Google is not practicing what it preaches when it comes to net neutrality?  Google's net neutrality platform would create regulations that would limit the flexibility of network owners to create high speed lanes for certain Internet content. But, Google wants the freedom to negotiate deals that would create high speed lanes for their content, provided they can get network owners to agree to the deal.

For their part, Google is vociferously objecting to the WSJ article's characterization of the OpenEdge technology as violating net neutrality principles. While OpenEdge doesn't give Google content priority over other network traffic, it delivers the content more quickly to users because it's already on their home network. 

A thin distinction, at best.

One principle I have tried to adhere to religiously when I go to Washington is to be intellectually pure in my positions.  I refuse to ask Congress and regulators to deregulate for cable while I ask them to regulate other industries. 

Google should think about doing the same.

Serious flaw in Internet Explorer not fixed yet [Yahoo] 

Are you an Internet Explorer user? Malicious code embedded in some web sites have exposed a serious flaw in the Internet Explorer web browser. One anti-virus developer estimates that as many as 10,000 sites are infected with programming code that would allow hackers to take control of Internet Explorer users' computers. At this time, there's no word from Microsoft about when a software patch will be released to fix the flaw. The next regularly scheduled software patch date for Microsoft is January 8th. According to this article, many security experts are recommending that Internet Explorer users switch browsers until a patch is released.

Serious stuff.

BitTorrent Funding Reduced to Bits? [NewTeeVee] 

Things aren't going well for peer-to-peer software developer BitTorrent. Earlier this year, the company laid off 20 percent of staff, lost its CEO and shut down the Torrent Entertainment Network. Now, NewTeeVee writes that BitTorrent's venture financing is evaporating. As I've said here before, BitTorrent has had trouble developing a revenue model - its free software is often (but not always) used to illegally trade copyrighted material. As attractive "free" is, it's only good while it lasts. Rather than figure out how to get someone else's property for free, creative thinking should invest in figuring out how to get content to people as quickly and inexpensively as possible.

TV in 3D? Not Yet. NYT Gadgetwise Blog

Hoping that you'll soon see 3D television programming? While the technology exists for 3D programming, the standards that would pave the way for widespread adoption are still lacking. This article profiles the company that has developed camera technology that shot the first NFL game in 3D. Once standards are developed for the transmission and decoding of a 3D signal, its likely that we'll see even more programming in three dimensions.

Bring on those plastic red and blue lens glasses!!

Comments

[Chris Buechler]

Out of cycle IE patch is coming to Windows Update on Wednesday reportedly to fix the vulnerability noted in this post.

IE users - make sure you visit Windows Update (update.microsoft.com) on Wednesday.

On a similar note, Firefox was also updated today to address a few security vulnerabilities.

Though IE has a significantly worse track record than the other browsers, none are immune to these types of things. It's important to keep your applications up to date. Chrome, Safari and Opera have all suffered similar issues as well.

[bofkentucky]

I don't see the technical distinction between google's product and the Akamai edge cache appliances/content delivery network that most isp's use. Windows update, monster.com and Viacom's internet properties have used Akamai for years to help cut ISP's bandwidth needs to the internet proper. Google's appliance seems to be built along the same lines.

[sineswiper]

I think a lot of the confusion with the caching vs. net neutrality issue is that the definition of "net neutrality" really depends on who you ask. Some say that it has to do with preventing an ISP from prioritizing speeds between one web site and or another. Others say that it has to do with limit ISPs from slowing down or blocking P2P traffic.

The problem with these definitions, as one comment on the Google blog pointed out, is that "it is an outcome being described, not a policy." Thus, nobody really knows HOW to achieve that goal, because there's no technical definition tied to the outcome. If they do, they describe it as their definition of net neutrality, which gets lost among all of the other definitions.

In other words, nail down a definition and please call it something else. Instead of fights breaking out between Google, EFF, etc. vs. the ISPs and network admins, both of the groups should try to hash out a sane policy that would allow ISPs to being able to properly manage a network while making malicious prioritization (shutting down a competitor's website, for example) against regulations.