

A paper trail of betrayal: Google's net neutrality collapse - abraham
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/08/a-paper-trail-of-betrayal-googles-net-neutrality-collapse.ars

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plinkplonk
From a comment on the article.

"You can't absorb all those people from Microsoft and not get infected by the
same mindset. ".

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this initiative were being driven by an
"acquired" (set of) VP s. DoubleClick maybe? Sounds right up their alley.

~~~
Aaronontheweb
Google's always done what's in its best interest - it's not like they were
some pure entity that was contaminated by evil talent they acquired from
somewhere else.

~~~
ajju
Actually, most of the criticism aimed at Google for this issue stems from the
fact that they _do_ claim to be a pure entity by trumpeting "Don't be evil".

Most people are resigned to large corporations always acting in their self
interest, but when you be claim to be non-evil and imply that you will do this
regardless of self interest, any infarction, however minor, will be met with
criticism.

~~~
werrett

      infarct    - an area of dead tissue caused by a loss 
                   of blood supply; a localized necrosis.
      infarction - the process which causes an infarct. [1]
    

I think you meant _infraction_ but infarction works too. :)

[1] <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/infarct>

~~~
ajju
Good catch. Firefox's auto-correct is still not smart enough to catch misused
words :)

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icarus_drowning
What I think is missing from articles like this are clear suggestions on how
else to compromise with telcos and the FCC. The latter party has already had
significant trouble in their attempts to enforce neutrality, and telcos have
fought it vigorously.

It seems clear that some sort of compromise was worth inspecting. Whether or
not you agree with the Verizon/Google deal, it is worth criticizing it
realistically (I thought the EFF's response is the best so far), rather than
using charged language like "A paper trail of betrayal".

~~~
Ardit20
Why should there be any compromise with the telecos?

~~~
icarus_drowning
Why shouldn't there be?

~~~
chadmalik
Because their goal is to disadvantage internet properties they don't own or
tax and turn the internet into something more like cable TV?

~~~
icarus_drowning
On the contrary, their goal is to make money for their shareholders. At this
time, we are worried that they will do so by disadvantaging internet
properties they don't own. But the answer to that doesn't _by neccessity_ mean
that some reasonable compromise is a bad thing.

~~~
icarus_drowning
I have consistently argued that, although _I_ find these compromises entirely
fair, that others are perfectly reasonable to challenge them on their merits.

In general, most of the criticisms that I have read start with the assumption
that _any_ compromise is a bad thing, rather than addressing the _specifics_
of this proposal. Such thinking is an entirely unfair, and in many instances
begs the question. (Google's compromises are evil because only evil companies
compromise on this issue, because compromise is evil).

Far better critics (see the EFF's rational and reasonable critique of the
policy proposal) are being drowned out by the extremists, and, as a result, I
suspect they are going to marginalize themselves and (tragically) their more
reasonable peers.

------
pilif
One thing that came to my mind (and bear in mind that I don't live in the US,
so I might not know all the facts):

IMHO wired network neutrality is in fact more important than wireless because,
I have a feeling that while you are free to chose a wireless carrier that
doesn't do the kind of filtering you don't want, that's plain impossible in
many wired cases.

One thing is sure: If your wireless provider begins to, say, block YouTube
because they want to push their own video service, then there will _for_ sure
be another wireless provider that lists not blocking youtube as a distinct
feature, trying to get all these youtube users as customers.

In the majority of areas, there's more than one provider that provides
wireless connectivity.

But the landline is different.

Sure you have analog phone everywhere, but that's not really "internet". Is
it? If you want broadband, you have one or at most two carriers to chose from,
both usually with a very hight business interest to cripple various services
on the internet (Youtube for example) and knowing full well that they would
get away with that because there are no options (and building them is
prohibitively expensive or even impossible depending on the country - if you
wanted to lay yet another cable through rural areas here in Switzerland, you'd
be blocked for ages by various legal issues).

From this perspective I can understand Google's motivation there: Promise
neutrality where there is no competition and allow the wireless carriers to
provide the quality of service they need and even allow them to do selective
blocking of services because in the wireless space there at least is _some_
competition.

~~~
loup-vaillant
The facts contradict you, at least here in France.

Here, we have 3 major carriers. None gives you a public IP, and each block
most ports (except http, pop3 and such —smtp is blocked, of course). They may
have _Web_ neutrality, but _Net_ neutrality is a distant dream.

On the land line, however, you have your public IP, and some providers don't
even block smtp. The situation there is much better. Even if you take the low
bandwidth into account.

I can't how this will evolve, but for now, the emergency seems to be the
wireless.

~~~
pilif
the wireless carriers here in switzerland also don't provide you with a public
IP - at least depending on your location. I think this has more technical
reasons than anything else.

The three carriers we can chose from are strangely (and probably illegally -
the state is looking into this) similar to each other, but all of them don't
make any effort in traffic shaping or controlling.

OTOH, they are pretty expensive for what they provide. When AT&T in the US
added that 2 GB cap, I was sighing and looking at my 250MB cap.

Sure, other carriers have better deals (better as in "cheaper bandwidth" but
worse coverage), but you basically can't get more then 1GB for a reasonable
price.

Aside of that though, they don't care how you use the service they provide.

Not having a public IP I can live with. Paying so much for data is annoying,
but if that's the way for them to provide me with unfiltered and unconstrained
net access, then I'm fine with that.

Hell, the word "tethering" wasn't even a word here before the iPhone came
around - hooking up your notebook to your phone has always been possible (and
encouraged - see prices and caps).

~~~
loup-vaillant
> Not having a public IP I can live with

You do realize that it forbids your phone (or the computer you tether) to be a
server, right? That means you can't receive calls over IP without the need for
a third party, for instance.

So I'd say they do care about how you use their service. They wouldn't want to
give you the means of destroying their busyness model, now do they?

~~~
pilif
I am perfectly well able to receive SIP calls over that private IP. Sure. You
do need STUN, but honestly, I have a feeling that it's ever so much easier to
do correct roaming between cell towers with those internal IPs which is likely
the reason for this configuration.

~~~
loup-vaillant
I don't know how roaming is supposed to work, but I'd be very surprised if
your feeling was grounded. Here's why:

(1) You keep the same phone number, wherever you are.

(2) Calls don' end even when you move.

Which means they can keep track of state, and link that state to your phone.
Id' be very surprised if the same kind of mechanism couldn't be use on IP
technology. My bet is, they do: have you ever noticed having to constantly
reconnect when you drive in a well covered area? If not, that most probably
mean that they keep track of the NAT table associated to your phone, and of
course your private IP. In that case, I can't fathom why they couldn't do the
same with a pubic IP.

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Gormo
This is much ado about nothing. What's more evil: using compromise and
negotiation as a means to move the situation incrementally in your desired
direction, or sacrificing practical success just to maintain an unyielding
commitment to ideology?

~~~
roc
In what way does the stated agreement move the situation incrementally
forward?

Google certainly claims that it's compromise to improve the current situation,
but I don't see a single proposal that doesn't have gigantic exemptions,
exceptions and loopholes.

~~~
btilly
Having Verizon agree to the consumer protections are a move forward. They are
the only telco to have so agreed, and several others have violated them.

~~~
roc
They've always agreed that the consumer needs to be protected. All the ISPs
have. They've just disagreed with the FCC on: 1\. how to protect them 2\. who
to protect them from 3\. who decides what's good and bad.

Their previous position was: 1\. trust us with QoS 2\. bad users/apps 3\. the
ISP itself

Their new position is: 1\. trust us with QoS 2\. bad users/apps 3\. a
consortium of ISPs

Which is worse, if anything. Previously they were pushing an edge-network QoS
strategy position that could be countered by competition.

Now they're pushing a position of de-facto collusion across the industry, to
implement their brand of QoS end-to-end.

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nkassis
One thing I don't get is, what would be wrong if Verizon decided to prioritize
VoIP packets as a group. That's a good thing. What about video content, also a
good thing. These are the things that Google I believe is talking about in the
exceptions.

That is not to say Verizon would do any of this properly but I still thing net
neutrality must take into consideration that not all internet traffic have the
same needs.

~~~
anamax
> I still thing net neutrality must take into consideration that not all
> internet traffic have the same needs.

How do you know the needs of different internet traffic?

For example, how do you know that a given video stream "needs" higher priority
than a given of e-mail? Yes, I'm aware that video is disrupted by jitter and
e-mail isn't, but that doesn't tell you anything about the "needs" of specific
content.

For example, do you really think that chatroulette "needs" priority over
e-mail telling someone how to defuse a bomb?

~~~
mishmash
Exactly, my cable ISP is Cox and they have been traffic shaping for years.
That means my neighbor's PornTube traffic already has priority over my FTP
session to a clients server.

    
    
        Its underlying traffic shaping method: at times of congestion, 
        all “time-sensitive” traffic – which it defines to include Web pages, 
        voice calls, streaming video, VPN tunneling and games – would not be 
        delayed. However, less time-sensitive traffic, including FTP transfers, 
        network storage, P2P, software updates and Usenet groups, could be.
    

[http://connectedplanetonline.com/residential_services/news/c...](http://connectedplanetonline.com/residential_services/news/cox-
traffic-shaping-method-0128/)

------
chopsueyar
Why would Google want to put the United States at such a disadvatage?

~~~
okaramian
Because corporations are legally obligated to operate in their shareholders
best interest. Not to be Captain America.

~~~
gphil
Yes, but what about when the shareholders are also mostly Americans? Big
corporations tend to operate in their stock's best interest, and this can
still cause serious problems for their shareholders.

~~~
Nwallins
> _Big corporations tend to operate in their stock's best interest, and this
> can still cause serious problems for their shareholders._

Erm, what? This seems contradictory on its face. The shareholder's only
interest in a company is its stock performance, be it stock price or dividend
payments. What sort of tendencies are you thinking of, here?

~~~
steveklabnik
> The shareholder's only interest in a company is its stock performance,

I think this is where you and he differ.

For instance, I'm a Microsoft shareholder. (2 shares, but still...) Many
Microsoft decisions since the mid-90s (when I first started holding MSFT) have
made life overall worse for me, even if they may have increased the value of
the stock I held.

~~~
Nwallins
> _Many Microsoft decisions since the mid-90s (when I first started holding
> MSFT) have made life overall worse for me_

That has nothing to do with your being a shareholder.

~~~
steveklabnik
You're right. There's no causation there... but that doesn't mean it still
doesn't affect me.

------
lordmatty
I keep coming back to this from Wired - "Openness in the mobile market is no
longer in Google’s best interest"

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spot
isn't verizon's LTE network bound by Google's neutrality conditions from the
auction?

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yanw
From a comment there:

It seems like everyone forgot the meaning of words like "negotiation",
"compromise" and "unbinding-agreement", other tech companies weren't fighting
with Google for net neutrality, in fact they left them to handle the teleco
fury on their own, and now that they have got some sort of agreement on the
subject people are ignoring the good bits and feel that Google owes them
something, which is ridiculous.

~~~
rtrunck
I think the anti-google anger arrises because many people didn't expect Google
to compromise on something that Google, previously, gave the impression of
being so important.

~~~
sliverstorm
Expecting them to be able to get away without any compromise is naive. They
are a company, not the supreme ruler.

Thus I fall back on my grandma's old adage; a good compromise leaves nobody
happy.

~~~
jleader
So how unhappy are the wireless companies?

