Google has announced plans to develop a system that will enable consumers to see exactly how their broadband connections are being fed to them.

Following accusations that many ISPs have been deliberately throttling bandwidth (especially Comcast, whose traffic management system seemed to suspiciously be blocking some file-sharing sites), Google wants the net to be more neutral.

Google senior policy director Richard Whitt said his company believes that the net should be more open, as this encourages creativity to flourish and does not allow the ISPs to decide which companies will do the best.

Secret

"We're trying to develop tools that allow people to detect what's happening with their broadband connections. They can then let (ISPs) know that they're not happy with what they're getting and that they think certain services are being tampered with," he said.

What these tools are, nobody knows, and there are probably a few companies out there who wouldn't want the general public to know about their bandwidth management strategies.

But you've got to hand it to Google, constantly battling to keep the internet wide open, even if they do sometimes speak about it in a bit of a clandestine, super-hero kind of way.