The whole fight about net neutrality is about to take a turn from the abstract to the concrete but in a somewhat unexpected way. It is not ISPs or telcos that are turning out to be the immediate culprits, but rather content owners, specifically TV networks. They are blocking Google TV from accessing their web sites with a regular browser and no changes to the experience. So while you can connect your Google TV to the internet, these sites have chosen to block your access purely on the basis of the software that you are running. While it is entirely legal for them to do so, it violates the most fundamental spirit of the web: the separation of client and server. It is that separation of layers (server, transport, client) which has been the source of much of the innovation on the web! I very much hope that this much more straightforward example of how violations of net neutrality are a risk for consumer choice and for innovation will finally make people wake up to how important an issue this is! NB: It would technically straight forward for Google TV to “impersonate” a different browser at which point these blocks would fail and maybe that’s what they should do to really join this battle.
