Google lets users search for Internet blockers

By Kim Dixon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.