
Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use - pontifier
http://googleprotest.com
======
rsingel
I still don't think this comports with the net neutrality rules, which focus
on network management at a user/protocol level. Commercial/non-commercial is a
business distinction -- which is exactly what net neutrality was meant to stop
(e.g. Comcast throttling BitTorrent).

Google Fiber shouldn't care a whit if my server is commercial or non-
commercial (what does that even mean?) If my usage _hurts_ the network, then
GF can throttle my connection in some way that is disclosed as a policy and
which is considered reasonable.

This is a half-assed compromise and it's not in line with either the spirit or
the clear language of net neutrality.

(Full Disclosure: I wrote the Wired article that set off this storm.)

~~~
ape4
I run a very non-busy website on my home server. Its got ads so I guess its a
business. Seems petty to ban such things. (Not on Google Fiber)

~~~
lotu
Simply making money is not enough to classify your website as commercial.
Also, it is likely your website _costs_ you money when you factor in hardware,
electricity, and programing time. Even if you make money your website probably
still counts as hobby unless you have incorporated or are running it like you
would run a business.

~~~
wisty
If there was a hard, fast rule, CC wouldn't have run a study to figure out
what on earth "non commercial" actually means -
[http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial](http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial)

------
tnuc
To save people from looking, it has been changed to;

\--- To operate servers for commercial purposes. However, personal, non-
commercial use of servers that complies with this AUP is acceptable, including
using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using
hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-
player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security. \---

~~~
numbsafari
They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host
servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host
my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?

~~~
sliverstorm
I doubt they are trying to cut off competition to GMail. Email is blocked
typically as a matter of convention by the majority of ISPs. It requires
features 99.9% of customers don't care about in the slightest, and invites
spam problems.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Indeed. Chances of a random person accidentally setting up an open email relay
of some sort are high.

~~~
officemonkey
Although an open email relay would probably be some other violation of the
AUP, methinks.

(warning: haven't actually read AUP.)

~~~
InclinedPlane
Most likely. But it's trivial to see whether or not someone is running an SMTP
server whereas it's more difficult to determine if they're running an open
relay.

~~~
officemonkey
Wouldn't it be a simple matter of just trying to send an email using the
server in question? If you receive the email you just sent, then it's an open
relay.

~~~
InclinedPlane
So now you have to have an email account somewhere that allows anything and
everything to be sent to it (no spam filtering), and you need a system to send
emails and correlate that with received emails. This is all certainly possible
and not necessarily that difficult, but compared to seeing if a service is
running on port 25 it's about a hojillion times more hassle.

~~~
vidarh
You don't need to send. Send "helo", "mail from" and "rcpt to" commands and
most servers that are not open relays will reject the message after the rcpt
to. Issue a "data", and most remaining ones will. At which point you can
disconnect without sending any e-mails. Open relay testers are dime a dozen.

------
Tomdarkness
Had Google actually taken action against anyone hosting a server? I guess this
is more of a T&C clarification than anything else, i.e they would of not
actually taken action against non-commercial servers anyway.

~~~
cracell
Still no rule against it is much better than an unenforced rule against it.

------
rch
Out of curiosity, why is there a prohibition on a particular type of activity
and not just on bandwidth or similar? I understand that this is a fairly
common provision, and not specific to Google Fiber at all.

~~~
maxsilver
Because not all internet is equal.

Most ISP's give home users a significant discount on their service, in
exchange for agreeing to certain assumptions about their use.

This is done because most home users could never afford internet, if they had
to pay for full price.

For example, in this area, a dedicated 20x20mb connection to the internet
costs about $500USD per month (Metro Ethernet). You can do almost anything you
want with this connection, since your paying for the full cost. Run servers,
re-sell it to others at markup, host hundreds of websites on it, anything
that's legal to do in the US, you can do with this connection.

However, most people can't afford $500/month at their house, and most people
would like to have faster download speeds than 20mb. These folks might instead
buy a Comcast residential plan that offers 50mb down, 10mb up, for roughly $80
(which is what that plan costs here).

$80/month is a lot cheaper than $500/month. The reason it's cheaper is because
you agree to use it very lightly (no servers, no commercial use, no re-
selling, keep total bandwidth use under 250-500GB, ect).

What some people try to do, is 'cheat' that system. They try to buy a 'home'
connection, and run their business-level services on it. ISP's crack down on
that, because it's not fair to the others whose service that person is
disrupting.

However, some home users have legitimate home uses that _appear_ to be cheats
in the system. Running a Minecraft server for your friends is a 'valid' home
use, but it sometimes conflicts with an ISP's rule (which might make an
assumption that all servers are 'business class only' uses).

\- - -

Sometimes it gets trickier -- where there's competition, anyone can buy high
speed internet. (Urbanized Cities are usually ok here, lots of people sell
Fiber lines / Metro Ethernet / Microwave / ect).

But at your house, there's usually zero competition by law. A provider like
Comcast might be the only option you have for high speed internet (perhaps
they bought exclusive franchise rights to your city, or perhaps your state or
local level government has created a law preventing new providers from
competing in your area (this isn't just theoretical, both of those things
commonly happen in the USA)

At this point, your usually stuck. The provider was given monopoly status, but
isn't being controlled by the regulations needed to ensure it doesn't abuse
it's monopoly status. What can you do, besides raise a lot of complaints about
that monopoly provider's rules.

\- - -

TL/DR : Home users never pay for most of the speeds they get. Therefore, those
speeds have to be shared among lots of people. ISP's use rules to make sure
everyone shares nicely. By default, those rules are overly harsh. Good ISP's
properly loosen the restrictions to allow obviously-good home uses.

~~~
belorn
Since you are defending this kind of practices, I must ask you: _Can you name
a single other service or product in the world that include such restrictions_
, and "up to X" quantity?

If I only got 50% of the actually contracted time of an rented apartment (say
they wrote "up to 1 month"), I would sue. If the fine print said apartment had
restrictions such as only 10 enter/exits, no commercial activities inside it
like programming, no more than 2 visiting friends per month, and only allowed
using the apartment for 12hrs per day, I would sue.

Why do we still allow this for Internet connectivity when we wouldn't for any
other kind of utility service?

~~~
maxsilver
To be clear, I'm not defending most of it. I'm only defending 'ISP's can
charge less to home users in exchange for them agreeing not to do specific
things'.

I'm _not_ defending the anti-competitive nature of laws in the USA. I'm _not_
defending overzealous use of 'home/business' seperation. And I'm _not_
defending overselling backhaul

\- - -

In your example, you use an rented apartment. This is a perfect example, a
rented apartment is like the 20x20 MetroE line I described above, you can do
whatever you want, you paid for the whole thing.

A timeshare is what your looking for -- a timeshare also a rented apartment
(or house, ect), but you _dont_ get all the time, you only get a piece of it
(say 'up to 1 month per year'). You get a significantly lower rate (in theory)
on a timeshare, because you only get a part of a time.

Timeshares are cheaper than a full apartment lease. You got the cheaper rate
because you agreed to the restrictions.

\- - -

Even ownership doesn't absolve you of these restrictions. For example, if you
buy a condominium, you usually agree to the condo boards rules (many of which
include things like "no guests for more than 7 days" or "no commercial /
industry / business / trade activity")
[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-12-08/business/02120...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-12-08/business/0212080039_1_board-
members-scope-unit)

\- - -

If you want me to name 'other services or products that include these
restrictions', I can name a bunch :

\- __Rental Cars __(mileage restriction, modification restriction)

\- __Leased Cars __(mileage restriction, modification restriction)

\- __Hotel Rooms __(limits on number of people present, not allowed to use it
for commercial activities, ect)

\- __Electricity __(limit to how much you can use at residential rates, if you
exceed this, your price usually jumps.)

\- __Commercial Libraries __, e.g. Universities (time limits on checked out
books, if you exceed them, you pay late fees. Not allowed to re-lend-out books
you 've borrowed from the library. Not allowed to make copies of books you've
borrowed from the library. Ect.)

\- - -

EDIT : Full disclosure, I'm trying to start an new Internet Service Provider
that isn't evil, from scratch, using our own network. (Not re-selling DSL /
Cable). It's really _really_ difficult.

I'm as pro-user pro-net-neutrality pro-open-internet anti-censorship pro-EFF
as they come. But from a mathematical standpoint, the numbers don't work out.
There's no way to cover expenses selling dedicated 50x50mbps uncapped,
completely unrestricted internet connections for $30-60/month (unless your
Google, and can subsidize the whole thing).

Normal home users are fine. People who just want burst fast speeds, but push
some number less than 300-600GB total each month, no problem. I don't care if
your running some webcams / Minecraft servers / web servers / SSH / VPN /
programming for your business / accepting orders / selling ETSY stuff / ect.

But "power users" who want to host small data centers on their $30/month
residential plan, or are seeding terrabytes of Torrent data each month, or are
trying to resell that connection -- it can't happen today. Your making your
friends and neighbors pay more for your crazy high usage. You need to be on a
business plan, and pay for dedicated internet.

Remember, 600GB is a huge amount of bandwidth for a home user. That's enough
to stream 25 days straight of tv-quality video (or 214 hours of HD Netflix)

I have no problem with heavy bandwidth users. But I do have a problem with
heavy bandwidth users who insist they pay only the bare minimum rates because
of their flawed interpretation of 'network neutrality'.

~~~
venomsnake
600GB is not huge. It it tiny. That is half my steam library. A quarter of my
backblaze backup. A crash event and I will have to wait half an year to
recover my stuff.

I see your math problem. And it has some solutions:

1\. Nightly speeds - this was used in my country by the ISP-s when all caps on
speed were removed after 1am to 6am with QoS on 80/443 2\. Non guaranteed top
speeds - you allow people to go up to some speed if your network is
underutilized. 3\. Metered - I think that is the best approach if the pricing
is right - a person cost me 20$/month just to be connected to my network
(fixed costs). You ask him for 30. A terabyte moving in/out of my network
costs me 2$ - you ask him for 3$. If you have 1 TB - it is 33$/month, if you
want to seed a lot - be my guest. You get your margins on the traffic. And you
are transparent to your customers. (yeah I know decision fatigue, but it could
be solved with prepaying and just allowing access to payment sites when the
prepayed traffic is over).

~~~
maxsilver
600GB is huge.

That's half your steam library. As in, you could re-download literally 50% of
_every Steam game you 've ever purchased in your entire life_.

It's also not a hard cap. It's just a warning light. If you go over 600GB,
police do not show up at your house and cut off your internet service. It's
simply an goodwill indicator. If your routinely jumping over 600GB use, you
ought to be paying for a higher tier plan, like a 'power user home plan'. (If
you restore your entire backblaze and steam library every single month --
something is wrong)

But otherwise, I agree with you on many of these points.

\- _Nightly Speeds_ : If the lines aren't saturated, your free to use as much
as you please. (ISP's have to pay for that connection 24/7, so if it's not in
heavy use, your free to run wild. Won't bother me any). This is done already.

\- _Non-guaranteed top speeds_ : This is also already done. Plans are
advertised with separate dedicated and bursting speeds. Just because Comcast
is deceptive on advertising, doesn't mean all ISP's are.

\- _Metered_ : I personally am fine with metered billing, if the price is
right. However, literally no regular person is ok with this. Unless your super
technical, you won't know how much bandwidth your using, and won't sign on for
this plan. (especially now that Verizon / Sprint / AT&T charge $15 per
gigabyte, people are conditioned to flinch whenever they hear anything
remotely similar to 'metered billing').

------
mtarnovan
Slightly off topic, but browsing the comments on this thread I'm just amazed
how good and cheap Internet has become here (Romania) compared to some of the
prices out there. A major local provider recently announced a new 1Gbps plan
for about 18$/month. I'm currently on their 50Mbps plan, and I get just that:
5MBytes/s up/down.

~~~
breischl
I'm reading this while I wait for a 10MB upload to crawl to completion on my
768Kbps up connection that costs $40/month. Which is especially sad because I
live less than two miles from the dead center of Denver. So yeah, I'm just a
bit jealous.

~~~
nwh
I pay $70USD a month for a barely functioning ADSL line in Australia that
might hit 40KB/s on a good day. It's literally faster for me to walk to a
place in the city that has fibre and upload files there.

------
cenhyperion
This is great news. Although I doubt they would crack down on people running
some low traffic servers for personal use either way, it's good that it is
officially clarified.

------
pfraze
Definitely appreciate that policy change.

------
ilaksh
Aren't there a ton of people who moved out there specifically to run their
startups on Google Fiber? So all of them are breaking the terms supposedly.

------
blhack
Doesn't this change...nothing? They have always allowed you to run non-
commercial servers, haven't they?

~~~
teraflop
No, the original wording was pretty draconian and attracted some complaints:
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/google-fiber-
continues...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/google-fiber-continues-
awful-isp-tradition-banning-servers)

Key phrase: "Unless you have a written agreement with Google Fiber permitting
you do so, you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber
connection"

------
ljlolel
What happened to net neutrality, Google?

~~~
rmrfrmrf
This is why I can't stand libertarians. FREEDOM MUST BE PROTECTED WITH LAWS.
It's a precedent that has been set in stone since the Bill of Rights!

ljlolel here is, with a straight face, DEFENDING the ability for AT&T to
siphon bandwidth off of Google's residential fiber service in order to resell
it. Does that really sound reasonable to _anyone_?

Same deal with the GPL. "OMG I hate the GPL because it doesn't let me take
free software and make it proprietary then add all kinds of DRM and shit and
subjugate users." Boo fucking hoo!

The intent has always been USER freedom, not freedom for commercial entities
are making a living attempting to peddle knockoff products at hiked-up prices.

~~~
n09n
No, as someone who lives on both sides of that comparison, I would like both
kinds of freedom. I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive as long as
we set up a few basic rules about the use of infrastructure that everyone
needs. Most actual net neutrality proposals go way beyond what is necessary.
Much like the GPL.

------
nullc
Better make sure you run adblock while browsing through your VPN to home-
wouldn't want anything commercial to go on.

It's all good: Google is just trying to protect you from the evils of money.

~~~
nullc
Wow, -1. I know I was being a bit snarky. But the definition of "commercial
use" is horribly ambiguous, with basically no broad legally defined meaning.

If viewing ads on Google wasn't a commercial use I could hardly imagine
anything else being one... but presumably they don't intend to reject
commercial uses that make them money.

The whole idea about rejecting commercial uses is wrong-headed. It presumes
that you can draw a bright line between someones activities being commercial
or not. Really, just like the no-servers prohibition this is a frivolous field
of use restriction which serves to act as an excuse for arbitrary enforcement.

------
ivanbrussik
EXTRA! New WATER company opening throughout the USA but doesn't allow HOT
water.

Google is shit. I hope the US government smacks them for this.

------
piratebroadcast
Site looks like shit. Just saying.

------
api
Can't have faster home Internet lead to decentralization...

------
znowi
If only it was that simple to make Google stop spying for NSA

~~~
thisisnotatest
Google doesn't spy for the NSA. The NSA might be spying _on_ Google, but
that's not the same thing.

~~~
wmf
Replying to subpoenas and warrants was recently redefined as "spying".

