Comment by hosh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hosh | Hacker News Reader

I remembered the story how Google created a 411 service that would connect to their search product. Microsoft scrambled to make something similar. At some point, Google discontinued it. The reason? By then, They had collected a lot of voice samples for training their voice recognition system. (And likely, it was easier to support a smartphone app than to support a call-in service).

When I was reading about Google Cloud Spanner, something struck me. Google Cloud Spanner was able to do what it does, not because of atomic clocks, but because Google has super-reliable private fiber that connects their data centers together. And I started wondering -- what was the hidden purpose of Google Fiber -- aside from stirring up the consumer broadband market?

One possible reason is that services like YouTube and Google’s messaging-app-of-the-week would require lots of bandwidth and Google definitely benefits from having those services be practical for as many people as possible. If 50% of your friends can’t realistically use online services because $ISP sucks at downloading lots of data, there is a problem.

The reason Spanner was possible is because Google does NOT use standard TCP/IP. Google created a logical circuit switch network that is determinate versus IP nondeterminat.

> what was the hidden purpose of Google Fiber -- aside from stirring up the consumer broadband market?

Isn't it obvious? So they can collect information about you at the packet level. There's only so much information you can get from people visiting your web properties or using your browser. When customers use your pipe, now you can track _everything_.

Thanks to HTTPS everywhere, not really.

You're not looking at it the right way.

HTTPS still lets you know which sites you're visiting (Hostname has to be unencrypted).

But there's more than just web traffic. Say you like to play on your PS4 every night at 6. Now Google knows that. Run your own SSH server, OpenVPN, and mail server? Google knows that, and has profiled you as a "developer". And so on. Think big, man.

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