Interwebs

Google, Verizon Strike Net-Neutrality Deal

Company can slow content over its wire.

Is this the best Verizon could offer? Google and Verizon have made a deal on net neutrality, reaching a compromise in which Verizon will be allowed to selectively slow Internet content communicated over its wires, but would not slow Web traffic on mobile phones. The companies have been fighting over the issue for several years. Cable and phone companies like Verizon had argued that they needed to be able to control content to keep up performance, while content providers like Google had said cable companies would just favor their content and their partners’ at the expense of other content, a sort of default censorship. The companies have been in talks with the FCC for almost a year.