
Google goes "evil" - mcantelon
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-green/breaking-google-goes-evil_b_676021.html
======
akeefer
This is a pretty terrible article: the author basically mis-represents what
actually happened, and then dismisses any possible legitimate motive for
Google doing what it did with no argument, merely by asserting that such a
motive can't possible exist.

Maybe, just maybe, Google thinks that massive government regulation of the
still-nascent wireless internet market will do more harm than good at this
point, and that we should consider the question later once we have actual
empirical data about what works and what doesn't? Is that really such an
illogical position to adopt?

~~~
jshen
"that really such an illogical position to adopt?"

yes, because once giant corporations make a tiered wireless internet take hold
there is absolutely no chance of untiering it.

~~~
nl
It's possible that in the wireless space tiered access might make sense. I'm
not a wireless engineer but my understanding is that wireless access suffers
from overcrowding a lot more than wired access simply because the overall
bandwith within a given frequency band is a lot lower than a bundle of optical
fibers.

Given this limitation I think we should be very careful in saying that a given
solution should not be allowed. I can imagine scenarios where tiered pricing
models would be very beneficial to most people.

For example, imagine a business setting up wireless security video cams.
Thoughtlessly, they set them up to record and send video in HD. A few of those
pointed at a rapidly changing scene (eg, a road) can chew though a lot of
bandwidth. The owner of those cams doesn't care - why should they? They just
pay a flat rate and the fact that everyone else's access is bad isn't their
problem.

If an access provider could charge extra for that traffic then it would give
the cam owner motivation to fix the problem.

(Yes, there are other solutions - a price per Gb of traffic is an obvious one.
But my point is that I'm not convinced other options should be outlawed _yet_
)

~~~
macrael
But I think you are confusing things. There is no question anywhere as to
whether people who use more data can be charged more for that use. The fact
that most home plans are all you can eat has nothing to do with net
neutrality. So in your example, hopefully the security camera company would be
charged a higher fee than a competing company who streamed non HD video.
Youtube pays a hell of a lot more to hook up to the internet than I do.

The question is whether Verizon can charge a separate fee to prioritize one
company's traffic over another. My understanding is that this recommendation
partially closes that door for wired traffic but leaves it wide open for
wireless traffic. Now fledgling startup security video hooks up their cameras
to the web and find their bandwidth artificially restricted compared to the
entrenched competition because they aren't paying for the super deluxe plan,
or because Verizon has an exclusivity agreement with the entrenched player, or
whatever. That is what seems to be left possible in wireless land with this
recommendation, and that is frightening.

~~~
nl
I understand your argument. Did you see my line _Yes, there are other
solutions - a price per Gb of traffic is an obvious one. But my point is that
I'm not convinced other options should be outlawed yet_?

My point is that it may make sense - and be good for consumers - to
deprioritize and/or discourage some kinds of usage over wireless.
<http://danweinreb.org/blog/google-and-verizon-a-new-hope> references the
story [http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/The-Truth-About-
Googl...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/The-Truth-About-Google-
Verizon-and-Net-Neutrality-371606/). I hadn't read this when I made my
original post, but it makes a much more compelling argument based on the same
ideas.

It makes the point that for VOIP to work properly over wireless you can't have
jittery delivery. One way to solve that it to use QOS to increase the priority
of that in comparison to video. That isn't "neutral" access, but it is good
consumers.

~~~
wtallis
As long as my neighbor and I are both paying the same ISP the same amount of
money for an internet connection, then we should have the same probability of
one of our packets making it through their network. If I'm making an FTP
transfer and my neighbor is teleconferencing, it's fine for some of his
packets to be delivered more quickly than some of mine, provided that over any
given second, we get to transfer roughly the same amount of data. Until our
ISP redefines itself as a telecom provider with ancillary FTP capabilities,
their QoS strategies shouldn't benefit my neighbor at my expense.

If ISPs are allowed to discriminate significantly based on the protocol, then
what's to stop them from inventing a new proprietary video transmission
protocol and prioritizing that over any protocol used by YouTube, effectively
reimplementing discrimination on the source or destination of traffic (which
is the most obvious justification for net neutrality)?

------
moskie
I think we have a lot of Chicken Littles reacting to this news.

All the articles that speak out against this agreement are mostly just laundry
lists of no-network-neutrality doomsday scenarios, and are not even attempting
an unbiased discussion of what this proposal is actually saying.

The proposal explicitly solidifies network neutrality for wired services,
which is good. But it's true, this proposal does not cover wireless service:
"Because of the unique technical and operational characteristics of wireless
networks, and the competitive and still-developing nature of wireless
broadband services, only the transparency principle would apply to wireless
broadband at this time." Those last three words are important. This proposal
is not advocating for wireless service network neutrality, but it also is not
advocating against it. And perhaps most importantly, this proposal explicitly
leaves the door open for discussing wireless service network neutrality in the
future. So I think we should be able to accept this as a first step, then
afterwards continue to advocate for similar practices to be implemented for
wireless service as well.

It also suggests that ISPs be able to have content and services specific to
their subscribers, as long as it does not "threaten the meaningful
availability of broadband Internet access services or have been devised or
promoted in a manner designed to evade these consumer protections." I suppose
people can be up-in-arms about that, but I think that's a reasonable target:
ISPs can do what they want as long general internet access is not compromised.

------
dman
Ive long felt that there is an eerie parallel between Google and Standard Oil
(the historic Oil company owned by John D Rockefeller). Heres a quote from the
wikipedia page for Standard Oil - "The company grew by increasing sales and
also through acquisitions. After purchasing competing firms, Rockefeller shut
down those he believed to be inefficient and kept the others. In a seminal
deal, in 1868, the Lake Shore Railroad, a part of the New York Central, gave
Rockefeller's firm a going rate of one cent a gallon or forty-two cents a
barrel, an effective 71% discount off of its listed rates in return for a
promise to ship at least 60 carloads of oil daily and to handle the loading
and unloading on its own.[citation needed] Smaller companies decried such
deals as unfair because they were not producing enough oil to qualify for
discounts."

~~~
delano
That sounds like they found an efficient deal for both sides.

~~~
pi3832
The industry and consumers were much better off with Standard Oil controlling
most of the industry. It stabilized markets and led to more efficient crude
and refined oil production.

~~~
dman
Significant portions of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil> would
disagree with that assessment.

------
jmtame
i've been dissatisfied with every article i've read about this subject, and
it's something that i care deeply about as a supporter of network neutrality.
just like every other article, it's linkbaiting and taking the opportunity to
bash google when the only alternative is to let congressmen make up these
rules on their own with the telecoms (not the type of situation you want to be
in).

if anyone is going to negotiate the formal policies of network neutrality, i
can't think of a better company to do it than google. the formalization has to
happen one way or the other, we've already seen that the fcc's power is
questionable at best right now.

engadget wrote the best explanation of the tradeoffs here:
[http://i.engadget.com/2010/08/09/google-and-verizons-net-
neu...](http://i.engadget.com/2010/08/09/google-and-verizons-net-neutrality-
proposal-explained/)

~~~
einarvollset
Jared, from the linked article:

"it's hard to reconcile the stated need for net neutrality in this agreement
with a giant exception for wireless networks, which are quickly becoming the
most important networks of all"

------
illumin8
This is a good article. Google and Verizon basically said "we are supporting
net neutrality, as long as it only applies to the parts of the internet that
we have no interest in". Wireless and new services like TV are not included.
This is not net neutrality. This is Google/verizon profit guaranteed utopia.
New business models need not apply.

~~~
patrickaljord
> "we are supporting net neutrality, as long as it only applies to the parts
> of the internet that we have no interest in"

Except Google makes most of its profit on wireline broadband...

~~~
waterlesscloud
Today.

------
gojomo
Adam Green is being hyperbolic to boost his 'bold progressive' activist
organization's campaign. Assign his words no more weight than when you receive
direct mail with alternating paragraphs in ALL CAPS and an RSVP about how
important it is for you to DONATE NOW.

------
treeface
>Google's decision to cut a deal with Verizon wreaks of either impatience or
fear. Either Google wasn't willing to wait for the Verizons of the world to
crumble and die -- and therefore moved it's own business development timeline
up 5 or 10 years at the expense of the entire American public. Or, Google
feared doing the dirty work that comes with being a leader -- despite
launching a "Google Fiber for Communities" program that competes head-to-head
with the decrepit incumbents, Google feared actually having to fulfil their
potential to defeat the bad guys.

Maybe someone can correct me on this, but as far as I've been able to
determine, Verizon's been the one pushing FTTH more than any other company
with FiOS. Google might have this pet project, but Verizon has put quite a lot
of money into laying new fiber.

~~~
SnowLprd
Correction: Verizon _used to_ push fiber-to-the-home. They shelved FiOS months
ago: [http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/27/verizon-shelves-plans-
for...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/27/verizon-shelves-plans-for-future-
fios-rollouts-relocations-to-m/)

------
gruseom
If the narrative continues to grow the way it's growing, Google are going to
backpedal on this the same way they've backpedaled after making other
mistakes. It doesn't matter much what the particulars of the deal are or how
unfairly they're being misinterpreted (if they are); there's a risk to
Google's brand here and they're smart enough to protect it.

The reaction against this deal is emotional. How many people have studied the
details? I haven't. It doesn't matter because people have such strong feelings
about net neutrality and -- on the whole -- rightly so. These feelings may be
limited to the small tech community but that community's importance is greater
than its numbers and includes a lot of people inside Google itself. If this
doesn't die down in a couple days, expect some sort of adjustment from Google.

~~~
moultano
I've learned something about the news today.

If A has a good reputation and B has a bad reputation, and A and B come to a
compromise, it makes the reputation of A worse, and doesn't make the
reputation of B any better, regardless of what the compromise actually is.

Verizon is so toxic that them just being a party to this taints it for
everyone it seems. If this agreement were something that Google was
_demanding_ of Verizon rather than something they agreed to with Verizon,
everyone would be praising it.

------
zmmmmm
The biggest problem I have with this is that the rationalization for why the
"unique characteristics" of wireless networks require no network neutrality is
completely missing.

Limited bandwidth? But why does limited bandwidth mean it's ok to prejudice
services? Why does that make it ok that YouTube can purchase prioritized
service over GlueTube? Doesn't having a limited resource make it _more_
important to share that resource around rather than _less_ important? Isn't
that the way it works everywhere else (eg: limited water supplies usually mean
we regulate the price and ensure Grandma doesn't have to pay way more than
BigCompany or we know that Grandma is getting no water).

The "still-developing nature" of the service? I still don't get it. If
anything the immature nature of the services mean that the nascent network
needs more protection, not less. We just don't know how it is going to evolve
- ok fine - but doesn't uncertainty counsel more caution rather than lack of
caution? We can always relax rules later if they are determined to be harmful.
It will be very hard to wind back a non-network-neutrality situation once that
has emerged and established itself if we determine it is harmful.

Perhaps I can buy these arguments if they are made sufficiently, but there
just isn't enough detail here to make a sound logical link. I'm not going to
say they are evil, but I do think Google has got some explaining to do.

~~~
moultano
It seems like caution in most circumstances is _not_ to regulate it.

~~~
zmmmmm
I guess the argument I would make against that is that the risk of starting
with network neutrality is low because _it is approximately what we have now_
(I'm sure someone will provide counter examples, but I would still say it is
fairly much the situation). There is more certainty in maintaining the status
quo than adventuring into unknown territory.

------
kenjackson
When are people going to give up this notion that companies are evil or good?
Companies try to make money and crush those that try to stop them. it's just
when you're big, you get to do the crushing. When you're little, you're
dodging giant feet trying to step on you.

Google and Apple are now unquestionably large. And they are crushing things
that stand in their way.

Just remember, "Don't be evil" as a motto to make money. Until you can no
longer make sufficient money with the motto. Then being evil is almost
certainly the only way.

~~~
raganwald

        When are people going to give up this notion that companies are evil or good?
    

Hey, I didn't start it, _Google did_. If a politician stands up and says,
"Elect me because I'll do the best backroom deals for you, my constituent,"
you know what you're getting. You don't elect her and then complain that she's
in bed with lobbyists.

But when she calls for transparency in government and bringing a new broom to
the legislature, you have every right to be outraged when she's discovered
steering fat consulting contracts to her college buddies.

It's not an issue of whether Google is evil. It's an issue of whether Google
is _Hypocritical_.

~~~
thebigshane
Google is not an elected representative either. They work for the market, not
the people.

------
DTrejo
Is there something wrong with being overcautious in this case?

~~~
thebigshane
wouldn't the term "OVERcautious" imply too much caution? Caution is fine,
great in fact. But too much of anything is ...

------
Ixiaus
This is a sensationalist article and the author read into it poorly. Something
is bound to happen, there _will_ be some sort of compromise between complete
network neutrality and telecom dominance; primarily because neither camp will
get _all_ of what they want. This deal is great news because at least
_something_ is being preserved!

If you truly care don't just support network neutrality, support projects like
GNUnet (<https://ng.gnunet.org/>) or FreeNet that actually enable people to
use the internet anonymously and securely.

~~~
itistoday
In in a "tiered internet" projects like GNUnet and FreeNet are at risk.

Service provider routers with deep packet inspection and similar technology
will simply turn a little dial until bandwidth for GNUnet et. al. slows to a
trickle.

That's why this is such a touchy issue.

Any attempt on the part of Google/Verizon to _not_ come out directly in favor
and clearly stating support of Network Neutrality, is in fact a PC way of
saying that they _don't_ support it.

~~~
Ixiaus
Would it be that feasible to detect anonymized and encrypted GNUnet traffic?
The packets would be largely scrambled, no? Unless you knew that
sending/receiving nodes were in fact GNUnet endpoints - you could infer _what_
the traffic is, based on that - otherwise they shouldn't be able to reliably
determine whether it is an encrypted SSL browser session or an encrypted
GNUnet transmission (I may be missing a crucial piece of information here,
please fill me in if so!).

I would imagine that coming out and clearly supporting it would be a difficult
PR move to swallow. The extreme of net neutrality ensures that the internet
remains open regardless of what is being transmitted; this includes everything
from illegal content, socially taboo content, legal content, and liberal
expression of thought/idea/opinion. While many critical thinkers would
correctly say that "supporting an open internet maintains innovation and the
free exchange of ideas and that it is often a self-regulating entity that
should not be stifled" they also forget that many _many_ people _do not_ see
it that way. There is quite a bit of archaic thinking that qualifies an "open
internet" as a harmful medium because that openness allows for the unregulated
transmission of thought dangerous to the state, child pornography, and other
illicit materials and subjects. Those same people that believe it must be
regulated are locked in a state of believing it is people they must control
rather than themselves (I know that sounds unnecessarily philosophical, but,
it really is the truth).

Is this worth fighting? Are we making headway? Maybe a little. But the
establishment is _established_ while the progressive roots of free thinkers is
protean (it is necessarily so, otherwise we wouldn't be progressive). The goal
should be to keep pushing, slowly, persistently, and steadily while exploring
mediums and clever ways of circumventing the silliness of people that believe
regulating something as transformative as the internet will actually _work_.

Hell, it's all a bunch of _old_ people coming up with these policies! In 20 or
30 years, people in political power will be those young people that were _born
with the internet_ and were witness to it - the internet already made its
impact and the momentum is far too great for anyone power to stop it. It may
be muffled for a bit (if even that), but it won't be stopped.

------
mattmaroon
I laughed out loud at "wireline" internet becoming irrelevant in a few years.
Even when I'm surfing the web on my phone, I'm doing it on wifi as often as on
EVDO. Then there's the 10+ hours a day in front of a computer.

Cellular internet is a long way from offering the speed and convenience of
broadband. And even then, the cost of landline internet is just so much lower
that we'll see wi-fi continue to proliferate.

~~~
steveklabnik
3G is roughly as fast as DSL, isn't it? Like 1.5Mbps. 4G is supposed to have
100Mbps down, and 50 up. That's plenty fast.

And the cost of wireless internet is cheaper. I pay $30/month for my unlimited
data plan with T-Mobile, and I pay $60/month for my FIOS.

~~~
mattmaroon
No, for two reasons. 1, What you're quoting is a theoretical maximum, actual
rates are substantially lower. 2, The latency is brutal. Most of the net
(especially as viewed from mobile devices) is very small files delivered
frequently, which makes latency a much bigger factor in overall experience
than speed. Ping times on even the strongest 3G connections are much higher
than even an average wired broadband connection.

Also you only pay less for your wireless internet because the average consumer
uses WAY less of it than wired. Per megabyte we're spending far more on those
wireless data plans, and as soon as the rate of use grows I think we'll see
them start becoming metered.

~~~
steveklabnik
Nice catches... I was agreeing with you until I thought about it a little, now
I'm agreeing with you again.

------
Tichy
There already is a channel that offers only limited access to information, and
people pay for it: TV. I guess if people are content with limited channels,
why not let them. It also doesn't bother me much that I can not watch TV
through my internet connection.

Overall I am not worried, because there should be enough people who would want
a free connection. Competition should do the rest.

------
danielsoneg
Seems to me like a lot of the furor over this announcement has to do with
Verizon's involvement - there seems to be a de facto assumption that if
Verizon has said it's good, it's bad for the consumer.

I have my own opinions on that statement, but if I were Verizon's PR dept, I'd
be drinking.

------
Aaronontheweb
So did Google essentially lie to the public about this last week or have I
misunderstood?

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/google-verizon-net-
neutrali...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/google-verizon-net-neutrality/)

~~~
yanw
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_verizon_propose_...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_verizon_propose_enforceable_net_neutrality.php)

------
buster
Although i'm not american, and so it doesn't affect me, i think this sounds
like a good move from google. I fail to see the horrible, evil plan when i
read the original article
[http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint-
policy-...](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint-policy-
proposal-for-open-internet.html) .

Would someone care to point me to the evil in those 7 points? To me it sounds
like "we want the internet more open and transparent for the customers".
That's good for american customers, isn't it? Why evil?

------
NginUS
If these guys really cared about their cause, wouldn't it make more sense to
provide a text field like YouTube does to embed the ad on your own site,
rather than, or in addition to trying to raise money to pay for it?

------
Charuru
I'm still not quite sure why this is terrible.

Will this decrease bandwidth for all the smaller sites? I don't see any reason
why it would, unless ISPs go over capacity. In which case if they do, then
everyone would suffer... and paying some money to suffer less does not seem so
unfair to me.

We already have tiered internet on the consumer side, ie, DSL vs Cable vs
Dial-up vs FiOS. I don't see what difference it makes if there are also tiers
on the content provider side.

The real problem seems to be one of capacity; any issues is caused by a
bandwidth scarcity, and that would have to be increased. What these people are
discussing is just a way to allocate the remaining bandwidth, in which case
'fairness' is completely impossible. There's absolutely no way to determine
who deserve the bandwidth more arbitrarily... Putting it on the market seems
pretty reasonable!

Anyway, I hope new service provider startups come into being that will make
the investments to improve infrastructure, though from what I understand that
seems to be a completely thankless job...

Please don't vote me down just because you disagree, I actually do not
understand many of these positions and this is a plea to be educated.

Thanks.

~~~
bodski
With wireless you can't just keep increasing capacity forever.

The problem is that there is a theoretical limit to how wireless
infrastructure can be improved. Sure, new generations of wireless tech. are
improving the bandwidth available every few years. But RF frequency bands are
a limited resource and sooner or later Shannon-Hartley's theorem [1] will
dictate that the only way to improve bandwidth will be to increase power
levels received at user's antennae (either by increasing effective
transmission power or clustering cells more densely). But doing this will
deliver ever diminishing (logarithmic) gains and an increasing public health
risk associated with increased RF levels.

Couple that with the fact that wireless is going to be _the_ Internet in the
coming decades (for many youngsters it already is) and you are faced with a
problem of how to allocate things fairly.

Wired Internet resources on the other hand can be upgraded effectively
forever. If the demand is there we can keep laying new fibre whilst maximising
the existing lines with new modulation techniques etc. The same cannot be said
of wireless technology.

It is precisely because of these major contention issues that wireless
spectrum should be protected under net neutrality regulations, its need of
regulation is in fact greater than that of wired Internet. When there is an
approaching hard limit to bandwidth available why would we want to allow the
parties with the biggest wallets dominate the traffic? It is precisely these
sorts of situations that governments are for, without them monopolies will
naturally form at the expense of the populace.

Imagine if governments around the world said, let's solve (or rather ignore)
the problem of car traffic congestion by allowing employers to bid for
priority access to the roads on behalf of their employees, and businesses to
bid on behalf of their customers, even though everyone has already paid their
own car tax, fuel etc.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem>

~~~
Charuru
I see, but what about the fundamental problem of bandwidth scarcity? If it's
not the market that allocates, is there a fairer way?

~~~
bodski
The market already allocates the bandwidth! Consumers pay for varying levels
of service with bigger usage caps for higher prices etc. The content providers
pay for their bandwidth at the other end (or the big ones enter 'tiering
agreements' etc.)

As demand increases for wireless bandwidth, prices may rise to reflect the
supply shortfall. At points this will hit an equilibrium level and demand will
cease to rise. At other points new technology will increase supply etc. At
some point in the future we will likely hit a fairly final equilibrium. As
long as governments maintain a level of competition in the market (something
they are generally not doing very well right now I admit) we could avoid price
fixing cartels between the carriers.

We just have to face it, wireless RF spectrum is a shared finite resource
nothing we do will ever overcome this fundamental truth. No amount of
financial manipulation of the market business models by the carriers will ever
change this.

If _I_ want to get priority access over others _I_ should pay for it! Allowing
content providers to bid for priority reduces consumers freedom to choose what
they are able to access. Problem is, a lot of people these days will take free
over paying a premium even when their freedom is removed.

Imagine say Verizon et al get their way and say for simplicity's sake 10 big
content providers manage to achieve the overall bandwidth priority between
them on most networks. People accessing other content will likely become
frustrated with smaller services and migrate their usage to the services
offered by these 'big 10'. Eventually most people use these prioritised
services and small sites/startups just don't get a look in. However nothing
has changed with regard to bandwidth, there is now the same contention just
that a small number of providers have managed to dominate the market. The
carriers are making loads of extra money for doing effectively nothing, all
they have done is played the content providers off against each other _and_
against the consumers (and pocketed lots of money in the process). It seems to
effectively amount to extortion.

Allowing prioritising of traffic based on provider will _not_ likely reduce
prices for data contracts for consumers. The same issues of bandwidth
contention will arise, except that this time the carriers are able to
effectively blackmail content providers. The big content providers may see
themselves as able to profit from this scenario, the smaller ones won't stand
a chance.

In the long, long term lets hope quantum entanglement based communication
allows us to leave RF behind!

------
yanw
I know Google became the poster-child for net neutrality, but why aren't other
big internet companies that have shied away from this debate being labeled
"evil"? The agreement text doesn't describe anything that differs from the
internet as it is today, it just leaved loopholes to appease Verizon investors
and to show the gov't that their not needed, the usual bullshit.

~~~
sigzero
When your motto is "do no evil" people tend to call you on it when you do.

~~~
yanw
Did they? The agreement have some good point as well as compromises, nothing
particularly earth shattering, if you want something different call your
senator, not Google.

~~~
sigzero
I was not coming down either way. I was just stating that if people perceive
this as "evil" they are certainly going to call Google on it. Not that I think
Google cares.

