Seventeen major tech giants — including Google, Facebook, Verizon, Microsoft, Dell, Yahoo! and others — have banded together in a non-profit industry organization called the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). The organization will help define and promote a new networking approach known as “Software-Defined Networking” (SDN). SDN is the result of a 6-year research collaborative between University of California at Berkeley and Stanford.

Chairman of the organization, Google’s SVP of Engineering Urs Hoelzle, has been quoted saying, “Software-Defined Networking will allow networks to evolve and improve more quickly than they can today. Over time, we expect SDN will help networks become both more secure and more reliable.”

The specifications of SDN, which you can read about more specifically in this Info Week article, have come into criticism within the net neutrality debate. Privacy advocate Lauren Weinstein has been quoted saying, “While the stated possible positives of such technology are real enough, the same mechanisms could be used to impose exactly the sorts of walled gardens, service degradations, and ‘pay to play’ limits that are at the heart of Net Neutrality concerns, as dominant ISPs in particular would be tempted to leverage this technology to further restrict user applications to the benefit of their own profit centers.”