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Article sums up the news around Facebook and Google Street View of the last weeks. The sleeping issue of privacy is said to have woken up. The U.S. Congress as well as the Federal Communications Commission and a Federal Trade Commission are asked to take action.

An article on how the increasing flow of internet traffic could potentially lead to a form of 'gatekeeping' of users by providers. It has always been perceived that there was network neutrality as providers charged a flat rate for unlimited internet access. However, the article argues that this is not the case as there has aways been some form of management of traffic so that an acceptable level of service is maintained. An extreme example is the court case between BitTorrent users and the provider Comcast. Comcast blocked this service as it was effecting service. This was challenged by users who initially won. However in a challenge by Comcast, Washington found in their favour as it found that the Federal Communications Commission could not decide how Comcast should manage its network. Another interesting point made is the potential for service providers to charge content providers who attract a large amount of traffic.This way good service is guarenteed, through essentially sharing the burden of cost. Obviously this is fiercely opposed by businesses. Clearly this all has the potential to change the relationship between users, content providers and service providers.

A coalition of internet companies are pushing for the US federal regulator responsible for communication industries to reassert control over ISPs by seeking to have internet services re-classified under the same rules as telephone services.

The US regulator for the communications industry is expected to announce it will extend the rules currently governing telephone service provision to apply to ISPs in a bid to set net-neutrality rules that would bar companies from favoring their own Web content and services.

The US Federal Communications Commission has been dealt a major blow in asserting its right to regulate net neutrality with a district court ruling the FCC had "failed to demonstrate" its authority to interfer with activity undertaken by internet service provider Commcast. Comcast had been moving to restrict the internet access of customers using peer-to-peer sharing software, which uses large amounts of bandwidth and is a common mode of illegal video and music piracy.