(Finally, a) good, concrete explanation of net neutrality issues for the mainstream consumer. However, the details of the alleged agreement between Google and Verizon are pretty sketchy, relying on "people close to the negotiations."

Very important scoop, but unapologetically lacks any sources.

My review has changed, based on new information from Google and Verizon denying these talks. Will be interesting to see where this goes, but right now it looks like NYTimes has some explaining to do.

I've just read official statements from both Google and Verizon in which they deny the story in the NYTimes. I provide a link to an updated blog post at Gizmodo which includes Google's and Verizon's denial. Google says: "The NYT is quite simply wrong. We have not had any conversations with Verizon about paying for carriage of Google or YouTube traffic. We remain as committed as we always have been to an open Internet." Verizon says: "The NYT article regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is mistaken. It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while ... More »

I rated this article poor because it is impossible to fact check the main claim which forms the basis for the entire article because it is based on "People close to the negotiations who were not authorized to speak publicly about them". I understand that this is necessary to do sometimes but they should have used direct quotes from the unnamed sources so that the reader would be able to come to their own conclusion about the contents of the negotiations. Instead, we get the author's summary which may or may not be accurate.

I found this article to be very informing. Key amount of data in article that can serve as a 'jump-off' for those readers who want to dig further.