Google Inc on Wednesday unveiled a plan aimed at eventually letting computer users determine whether providers like Comcast Corp are inappropriately blocking or slowing their work online.

The scheme is the latest bid in the debate over network neutrality, which pits content companies like Google against some Internet service providers.

The ISPs say they need to take reasonable steps to manage ever-growing traffic on their networks for the good of all users. Content and applications companies fear the providers have the power to discriminate, favoring some traffic over others.

Google will provide academic researchers with 36 servers in 12 locations in the United States and Europe to analyze data, said its chief Internet guru, Vint Cerf, known as the “father of the Internet.”

“When an Internet application doesn’t work as expected or your connection seems flaky, how can you tell whether there is a problem caused by your broadband ISP (Internet service provider), the application, your PC (personal computer), or something else?” Cerf wrote in a blog post.

The effort aims to uncover the problem for users, Cerf said. Cerf is widely known for his work for the U.S. government in designing the Internet protocol in the 1970s and 1980s.

In a precedent-setting decision last year, the five-member Federal Communications Commission voted to uphold a complaint accusing Comcast of violating the FCC’s open-Internet principles by blocking file-sharing services, such as those that distribute video and television shows.

The case became a flash point in the Net neutrality debate. Comcast is fighting the decision in the courts.

COX MAKES MOVE

In a move likely to fuel further debate, another large cable company, Cox Communications, said on Wednesday it would begin testing a plan to give priority to time-sensitive traffic like Web page views and streaming videos.

Less time-sensitive traffic, such as file uploads and peer-to-peer file sharing, could be delayed under the plan.

Cox said it will not discriminate based on owner or source of traffic.

Still, Net neutrality advocates are wary of such policies.

“The lesson we learned from the Comcast case is that we must be skeptical of any practice that comes between users and the Internet,” said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, an advocacy group.

Researchers are already using tools to test connection speed and determine if an ISP is blocking or throttling particular applications. Google’s effort will allow an expansion of that effort.

“The goal is to let consumers see what’s under the hood of their Internet connection,” said Sascha Meinrath, a wireless expert at the New America Foundation, a think tank in which Google CEO Eric Schmidt is board chairman. “Right now it’s very difficult now to make an informed consumer choice.”

Google has a business interest in keeping users’ experiences fast and efficient, said Google policy analyst Derek Slater, who reserved further judgment until he could learn more about the new Cox policy.

“Our ability to innovate still depends on end users being able to use their broadband connections to access Google. To the extent that consumers are having problems doing that, that can directly hurt Google.”

Source: Yahoo! – Reuters

YouTube on Monday unveiled a new feature which may prove useful to poor spellers or people suffering from “comment regret.”

Users of the Google-owned video-sharing site can new delete their own comments from the thread which accompanies videos on YouTube.

“Whether you misspelled “pwned,” back in the day when you were just a n00b to the internets, or you simply said something you wish you could take back — now you can remove your commentary at any time,” YouTube said in a blog post.

“Of course, we always encourage everyone to think things through before posting comments anywhere on the site. But if you don’t get it right the first time, now you can simply delete your comment,” it added.

To remove a comment, a user goes to the “Text Comments” section below a video and clicks on the “Remove” button.

Users can only delete comments they themselves have posted.

Source: Yahoo! – (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Number-crunchers can rejoice as Google Inc offers deeper access to the underlying figures for users’ Web searches, giving some insight into trends based on the relative popularity of various words.

The Internet search leader is expanding its existing Google Trends service to allow users to see underlying numerical data on the popularity of any particular search in Google’s vast database of search terms, relative to others.

Google Trends was begun two years ago as an entertaining but limited way to indicate what the world is thinking about over time, at least in terms of Web searches.

Now Google is giving users the ability to search across terms in its database, instantly chart how they compare to other search terms, then export the underlying numerical data into a common spreadsheet format to compare with other data.

Google Trends (http://trends.google.com/) lets users compare demand for various search terms and see how popularity differs across geographic regions, cities or languages.

A year ago, the company introduced Hot Trends, which gave users insight into fast-rising Web search trends with data refreshed several times daily. The tool’s power only grows as people conduct more and more of their everyday activities online, with Web search often their primary starting point.

The data in Google Trends stretches back to 2004. While the service is based on the many billions of individual searches performed each year, Google Trends only reveals data on the aggregate numbers of searches, not the searches themselves.

National differences in the endless human search for sex or love can vary widely, according to a Google Trends chart. http://tinyurl.com/5jt5ce/

Google Trends users can also chart the explosion of interest in the term “backdating” since 2006, reflecting the scandal over how hundreds of companies backdated options for executives. http://tinyurl.com/5l8osu/

Searches for the word “Microsoft” had a more than two-to-one-lead in searches over “Apple” three years ago, but Apple had virtually closed the gap by the end of 2007.

Then news reports of its takeover bid for Yahoo appears to have stoked a recovery in Microsoft this year. Searches for Microsoft have outnumbered those for Apple by about 7 to 5 in recent weeks, according to Google Trends data.

Users must be registered and signed into a Google account to use the service. One can then see the evolution of new terms or concepts through Google searches, including the rise of “Google Trends” itself. http://tinyurl.com/6zd6pg/.

(Editing by Braden Reddall)

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