For as long as most of you can probably remember, your ISP's terms of service has prohibited you from running a server, given the more intensive bandwidth demands. Ryan Single directs our attention to one Kansas City resident who filed a complaint with the FCC insisting that Google Fiber's ban on running your own servers is a network neutrality violation.

In a semi-rambling 53 page complaint (pdf) filed with the FCC, Kansas City resident Douglas McClendon complains that such bans technically prohibit everything from running a Minecraft server to using a Slingbox:

quote:

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All I want from ISPs is a fair share of network resources. And by fair, I mean that I want my usage of the traffic to be balanced with others, but most certainly in an application and service agnostic way. My upstream traffic as a web or game server should be treated no differently than each of my neighbors total upstream traffic, that may include more video uploads to YouTube, or live video streams to Skype or Google Hangouts.

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While it's true that Google has been heavily waffling on its neutrality principles for years, it's quite a stretch to insist they're violating network neutrality because their TOS has the same non-server language users have been seeing for years. The language is designed to stop incredibly heavy users from running commercial-grade servers, and ISPs obviously don't interfere with standard residential uses like game servers or place-shifting TV content. Still, under FCC rules the agency has until Monday to respond to McClendon.