I'm trying to think of a legitimate reason for Google to want this pushed through, other than to track their users. I can understand an IP wanting to use the "load balancing" reasoning, but tracking user activity is the ONLY thing Google stands to gain.

The title of your post made me think of a virtual realm version of mad max, where the evil ISPs are trying to take down your truck on the internet superhighway.

I'm fairly certain AT&T considers their network problems a public relations problem, not an actual network problem. This seems fairly evident given their recent style of ads.

I agree with this. There are many more attack vectors that have far higher rates of success, primarily social engineering on people who have ALL the unencrypted information sitting right in front of them, than trying to map out a network topology, find the unencrypted point, and get the information you want. Also, it's cheaper to train people

The movement you're proposing from the public would be influential yes, but the fact is the president we voted into office already made a huge issue on transparency. The pressure on the USTR should be coming on him from the top down, and if the measures being proposed are so draconian that they can't be revealed, then these are not discussions we should be taking part in. Not every movement needs to be grassroots; when the American public has already made a decision on how much they want transparency already. Then again, maybe it's just another forgotten promise by a politician and we were stupid to believe in it in the first place, and we should just annoy their offices until they yield.

The most disturbing point in this article, for me, is that the US may be the sticking point on allowing the discussions to be more transparent (link contained in TFA) http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4693/125/ I find this to be disgusting as we have yet another example that transparency TRULY being brought to Washington to be a farce.

It should be noted that this initiative is just for the developing a plan or plans for integrating smart grid technology, not actually implementing anything; thus the small pricetag.

This same thing has been said for a long time. The fact is in the majority of companies (Google/Defense industry excepted), is that security is the first area of a company to get hacked to bits. So I don't think it's so much a procedural issue as much as it is a fundamental problem with visibility. The only time security workers get noticed is when something goes wrong, because when nothing bad happens, it just looks to management like they're not doing anything yet taking a good portion of their budget. All that said, you're probably right, nothing will change.

With an environmental message undoubtedly borrowed from FernGully.

Great move by Google, although TFA points out that there are some problems with offline gmail and HTTPS, kudos to them for coming straight out and saying it may be a problem, while posting a link for some workarounds: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=172697

"The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy." Well thanks to the likes of Google and Facebook I can hardly do that as is.

What is their criteria for calling a company a US company now anyway? Most of the companies that obsessively file patents these days are so multinational (outside of the defense industry) that national borders are kind of a moot point.