Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has awarded a $1 million grant for the development of tools to detect Internet throttling, or censorship by governments trying to shut down or censor Internet access. The funds were awarded to researchers from Georgia Tech for two years' worth of work, with an additional payout of $500,000 should Google want to continue it for another year. As reported by CIO, the team of five is headed by Nick Feamster, who is an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science, and computer science professor Wenke Lee. 

The system will rely on participation by Internet users who agree to run a software agent as part of a distributed system. Noting that the ultimate aim is to provide transparency to the user, Feamster said, "Whether or not it is outright censorship of content, throttling of performance through traffic shaping or blocking of a particular application or domain, all these things could have either reasonable or unreasonable motives behind them."

The team hopes to move on to eventually build similar tools for smartphones and tablets. Censorship aside, I think the resultant tools will be a very interesting in determining if one's Internet bandwidth is up to scratch.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CIO
- check out this article at Ars Technica

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