Google's Trying to Help with NetNeutrality

"We're trying to develop tools, software tools...that allow people to detect what's happening with their broadband connections, so they can let [ISPs] know that they're not happy with what they're getting -- that they think certain services are being tampered with,"

This came from Google senior policy director Richard Whitt the other day. Google seems to have taken a firm stance on what ISP's are proposing to monitor. And why wouldn't they? In the end, Google would be the one that takes the hit.

People "Google" over any other search site. If you use Firefox, Opera or Safari, you have the Google search right at the top. For IE users, it's just a "Change Default" away. If you run a website with Google Adsense, chances are you are using the Google search engine to bring in a little revenue.

If ISP's start looking at what you do online, then people will stop searching for stuff. Other search sites might pop up to counter the ISP trafficking - masking information so it looks like your searching for flowers when it's really the Hulk movie. Google will loose it's 60-70 percent stature in all internet searches.

Now we all know that you should not download software, music or movies. It gets drilled in our heads on a daily basis. While Google is not trying to promote this, they know that if people need something and don't know where to get it, they will search first. Even if you do know where it is, you still will search for it.

"Feeling Lucky" is Googles' way of getting you to go through their webpage. According to statbrain.com, there are an average 91,201,253 visits per day. If people stop searching on a popular topic, imagine how that number would drop. If they feel they cannot safely go to the site, they will stop going to the site.

I am not saying this is what drives Google to help with Net Neutrality. However, if I was in the search engine market, I would definitely have a project team watching over these items. Any type of policing like this can really hurt on those who's life is online.

I don't torrent nor go to content that could raise a red flag for ISPs. Therefore I would continue to use Google on a constant basis. Even in writing this article I searched on Google about 10 to 12 times. It's really just a way of life on the internet for me. Before Google (and this dates myself), I was Metacrawling and Dog Piling.

So this brings up the question: Would your internet usage drop if you knew people were watching where you were going?

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