The issue of Net Neutrality has come to the fore again. A couple of weeks ago, we told you about advocacy text messages temporarily blocked by a carrier. Last week, independent tests confirmed that Comcast is blocking access to some data.

From the article:

Comcast's technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user.

Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer — it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: "Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye."

While it's most likely that Comcast has instituted the measures as a means of controlling traffic and server load, it raises a fine point: Why are movie downloads from iTunes ok, but not file sharing via BitTorrent? Who gets to decide what's important?

Wherever you stand on the issue, you should take a stand, and you should tell someone about it! Some resources:

• Wikipedia: Net Neutrality
• Google Guide to Net Neutrality