Google gives Georgia Tech $1 million to build a benchmark for the open internet

Shared by Mystech

File this one under the “money well spent” category.

You can benchmark the cycles of your CPU, power of your GPU, speed of your internet connection, and a myriad of other seemingly important things. However, there’s one missing benchmark that could make all those seem rather frivolous: the openness of your connection. Google wants one and has just awarded Georgia Tech a $1 million grant over two years (with a possible $500k bonus for a third year) to come up with a benchmark capable of detecting just how neutral your net is. When ready, it’ll look for any artificial throttling that’s been set in place and will also check for evidence of digital censorship. No word on when an early version might see release, but hopefully it comes before we need to start paying extra for the ability to download non-ISP-approved content.