A paper trail of betrayal: Google's net neutrality collapse
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
"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.
"Organizing the world's information for _everybody_ to access" seems as benevolent as it can get. Taking care of your employees by providing facilities only confirms the point of view.
PS: I am not commenting about, how Google is now. I liked what someone else said it yesterday, "Creating a new successful social network is like starting a new night club"
Except that Google doesn't claim to organize the world's information - there's plenty of stuff that they intentionally avoid.
Also, Google doesn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Would you think that a company that charged you $1 for each search was benevolent? If not, Google's benevolence is due to either charging less or charging someone else - which is it?
I don't place much value on benevolence - most of the world's horror stories are due to folks claiming that they were trying to "do good", but Google is not benevolent.
My sources, which include http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/benevolence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolence disagree.
What are your sources?
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.
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 challenge you to find an example of any company making such a major, fundamental u-turn.
"Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success...A number of justifications have been created to support carrier control over consumer choices online; none stand up to scrutiny." - Vint Cerf
Google Chief Internet Evangelist and Co-Developer of the Internet Protocol
I'd be really interested to know where he stands, he seems to be a very ethical person.
Google employees some of the most respected and seminal names in the history of the internet and I imagine their reputations and principles are worth more than whatever Google pays them.
I'm dying to hear the first comments from Vint, et al.
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/08/netw...
Anyone naive enough to think Google was sacrificing Billions in revenue in order to pursue net neutrality was seriously out of touch with reality.
Google was attempting to "innovate through legislation". What better way to stop Bing from making a deal with Verizon or Comcast than to make such a deal illegal!
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".
Still, you can not answer a question with a question. Why should there be any compromise? Verizon's goal and that of the public contradict each other fundamentally. The public votes in the politicians and votes them out, thus is immensely more powerful than Vrizon, thus why compromise at all?
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.
The fact that they are monopolies calls for a tougher line and no compromise absolutely.
Are people so scared of these guys that they are basically going to corrupt all the politicians? I mean, if they lobby, google has more than enough money to match their lobbying and the fact that they are "monopolies" makes google's argument even more powerful, not to mention that they have the backing of the public and the president.
So why compromise? Go for full attack! Fight like brave men. We did not have to compromise with Hitler tho there were plenty I heard who wanted to do so at that time.
You know good and bad are not some metaphorical stuff from the bible, but real concrete stuff which applies to the real world. Internet prioritization is evil, in any platform and form.
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.
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.
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).
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?
(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.
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.
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.
No net neutrality on wireless networks isn't a compromise.
Net neutrality with some exceptions would be a compromise. Net neutrality with a ton of exceptions would be a compromise. Hell, total freedom for carriers with merely the verbal promise to make a bit of an effort towards net neutrality could still qualify as a "compromise".
This proposal isn't a compromise. There's no "practical success" here. It's a complete and utter sell out. Having a "negotiation" about the terms of your surrender doesn't make it less of a surrender.
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.
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?
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.
So yeah, I agree that if you talk of type of data "as a group" prioritisation should be allowed. Not sure if the strongest believers of net neutrality are also against this though.
Capitalism is the theory that the worst people, acting from their worst motives, will somehow produce the most good. --Blum
1) Wal-Mart offers huge benefits to consumers, who can make ends meet (or work less hours) because of the substantial savings. Wal Mart employees are among the happiest and most satisfied in their economic stratum.
2) How is a trading partner an economic threat? China represents billions of consumers to buy American products and services.
3) If you think China is a military threat, you are paying too much attention to GOP propaganda. China's biggest problem is modernizing China without causing revolution. China has been a loyal and valuable trading partner for the US for decades, and the typical Chinese or American person has no desire for war whatsoever.
4) Capitalism is the accidental synchronization of peoples' needs and wants in a way that results in the most overall freedom and the most overall prosperity (of any system yet discovered by mankind). Are you seriously under the impression that "worst motives" don't exist in other economic systems? Sorry but I don't look at a postal or DMV clerk and admire their lofty motives.
I believe instead that many economic phenomena offer temporary advantages at the expense of far greater long-term disadvantages. A trivial example would be the recent housing bubble. We had a certain credit environment which led to people buying a lot of homes, which appeared to lead to great prosperity, and all was well until the bubble burst.
In the case of Wal-Mart, my personal and unfounded opinion is that it is a symptom of American (and by this I include Canada) economic decline. It's all very nice now, but as the factories close and the jobs dry up, they are not being replaced. China's billions of consumers might buy iPhones. Maybe. But if they do, how many software designers are needed in California?
That being said, I am not agitating for a change from Capitalism or that we close Wal-Mart. I was responding to a comment asking why Google might do something to disadvantage America. My point was that corporations do things to disadvantage nations all the time. Does this mean we should get rid of Capitalism? I'm not saying that. Does this mean that Capitalism overall is harmful? I'm not saying that either. I think Wal-Mart is an example of something harmful that corporations do, that's all.
The planners did not anticipate the self-reenforcing nature of the small price increases their machinations were causing, and before long boom, it burst and prices went down a lot.
Surely bubbles existed before central banking and affordable housing policies, but bad planning appears to make them bigger/worse than would otherwise be possible. It may also lead to greater average stability, who knows.
I think it's an interesting thought experiment to consider what would be a capitalist utopia. Literature is full of socialist style utopias, but it's harder to imagine one under capitalism.
If WalMart moves us further from such a utopia, what does the utopia look like? Is it mom 'n pop shops everywhere and extremely expensive search costs and high markup?
I find myself thinking that a capitalist utopia would have a high percentage of workers as freelancers and there would be lots of ongoing learning, and one might decide to change careers far later in life, etc.
To me Wal-Mart helps to usher in that era by freeing up lots of capital that was previously not all that productive (with a lot of fat added to the supply chain) which can now be used for other, higher, more utopian purposes.
You're assuming that having lots of little stores as opposed to one big chain means high markup. It doesn't have to. Walmart has extremely high markup in certain areas.
Personally I think a capitalist "utopia" would indeed consist of countless small companies all competing on equal footing with each other. The enabling factor would be instant communications and robotic production to keep costs down. Big companies damage the market because they move closer to monopolies. Imagine trying to get into the general retail space today!
Interesting thoughts on the capitalist utopia. I don't really have a strong intuition about it one way or another.
Wal-Mart shipped billions to America's greatest economic and military threat because - drumroll - people demanded it! The Wal-Mart-ification of America can squarely be blamed on Americans. Wal-Mart is giving the general public what it wants, and the general public wants more cheap crap made in other countries.
Throughout the '90s their big marketing point was "Buy American."
Looks like they have tried it both ways and have evidence for what the people want.
[1] Though to be fair, people not only wouldn't like but wouldn't accept paying what it would cost to make the goods in america.
You seem to be operating under the mistaken belief that in an economic exchange, one party is a winner, while the other is a loser.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In any voluntary transaction, both parties will improve their situation -- else they would not have entered into the transaction voluntarily.
Aggregate that from the micro scale to whole nations, and you'll see that it's perfectly possible -- in fact, if the market is free, a certainty -- that both nations will be better off. It's not a zero-sum game.
And if you're worried about the military, consider the words of Frederic Bastiat, who said, "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will."
Ah, the idealist argument. "Fred is doing it, so it must be good for Fred." I proses that instead: In any voluntary transaction, both parties BELIEVE they will improve their situation -- else they would not have entered into the transaction voluntarily.
In the case where the parties to a transaction are organizations of individuals, the circumstances are murkier still: In any voluntary transaction conducted by individuals on behalf of a group, both individuals believe they will improve their personal situation -- else they would not have entered their group into the transaction voluntarily.
This is why you have HP's CEO voluntarily defrauding HP. I doubt you'd argue that HP entered into a transaction with his mistress because both HP and the mistress improved their situation?
Your example is fatally flawed. The transactions I assume you're referring to -- the misrepresented dining expenses -- are transactions between HP and the restaurant, with Hurd acting as HP's agent. Since Hurd acted fraudulently, it was -- by definition -- not a voluntary transaction. Fraud is the commission of force, and thus cannot be voluntary.
both parties BELIEVE they will improve their situation
Of course. And that's the best that we can do. I'd urge you to read Human Action, by Mises, where this problem is addressed quite completely.
The thing is, only the participants themselves can truly know what their goals are, so there is no one in a position to gainsay. Indeed, sometimes the real motivation isn't even known to the individual himself. The best that we can do is to assume that each person is acting in his own self interest.
The only alternative is to have some sort of Big Brother vetting every transaction, but there's no reason to believe that BB would do any better, and there's every reason to believe that it would be far worse.
In that case, your entire argument is tautological. Two parties entering into a transaction both benefit. How do we know? Because they entered into it, so it must be good for them. How do we test this supposition? We can't, because there is no way to accumulate a list of voluntary transactions and see whether the parties benefitted or not.
By the same token, we can argue that anyone taking a decision benefits. How do we know? because they took a decision. Junkies benefit from heroin. Consumers benefit from sub-prime debt. Lending institutions benefitted from investing in junk bonds. I benefit from spending time at work arguing this point with you.
I am going to go my way and leave you to go yours. If you believe that anything two nations do voluntarily is automatically good for both of them, who am I to undermine your faith?
That said, both nations are still better off working together.
It's not just 'shipping billions of dollars'. It's getting tangible things in return. In fact, we're hardly 'shipping' them anything. We mail them slips of paper -- or even more commonly and abstractly, we move some symbols around in a ledger -- and then they're really shipping us real stuff. Who's winning that trade?
Consider the case of a shareholder invested in a company behaving in anti-competitive behavior that negatively effects the market as a whole. Now suppose the same shareholder owns many stocks across the market. This is clearly a loss for the shareholder, and a win for the company only. That's what I was trying to express.
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?
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.
That has nothing to do with your being a shareholder.
If Google refuses to compromise or negotiate, and acts against the telcos, they are in effect acting against their own interest. If they co-operate with the telcos, everyone wins.
My interpretation of the "deal" with Verizon, is that Verizon can't discriminate against one companies traffic over another, of a similar type.
The only obligation a corporation has to its shareholders is to maximize the funds it is given.
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.
Thus I fall back on my grandma's old adage; a good compromise leaves nobody happy.
Ahoy, our mobile OS is outselling others? Look over there, stuff with wires is still open.
They're no worse than most other companies in terms of what they're doing, but they branded themselves heroes to the internet; now that it's in their best interests to go against their previous stance people feel like they've been sold a bill of goods.
But on top of that there's the fact that Google has always described himself as being more ethical than your average company. Hence when they break that trust people get more angry than your average company.
Apple or Microsoft don't claim to be doing things out of the goodness of their heart: they are companies and they want to make money. Google pretended they were playing a different game and now that it looks like they aren't, people feel betrayed.
First Google attempts seems to have been half-hearted to say the least. Google is not a start up: they have a lot of power, a lot of money, and a lot of connections. If they wanted to put real pressure they could.
Second it was Google that put itself on the pedestal. They did not use half measures in the past: net neutrality was really really important. And they have tried to portrayed themselves as the customer's white knight.
Just as two examples (with reference to Apple, but I am sure there are many more) remember how Google spoke of Apple and Apple's future with the iPhone: draconian, big-brother, etc... That was another case where they tried to speak the language of morality, not of business. Same thing here (the arstechnica article is very eloquent in that).
Another example of how companies can push when they want take Apple who (allegedly) went to Verizon first but since Verizon didn't want to give up its privileges (their power over the phone) Apple went to AT&T. That probably meant less money for Apple and less market share. But Steve Jobs is so obsessive about these things that Apple can be quite blind in these cases (though that's something its fans like).
And mind you: I am not saying Apple is any better than Google. These are just two examples of how Google tends to speak in moral terms, and how other companies have used their power.
Basically Google is being accused of having been one huge hypocrite.
Half-hearted? people seem to forget about their bid for spectrum 3 years ago, also you don't know what happens behind closed doors, the telecos lobbing budget is many times that of Google.
3-years ago was a whole different situation. THAT's the whole point people are talking about. When people argue of an old Google and a new Google, taking an example from 3 years ago to as a point in favour of the new Google is a bit deceptive.
I agree btw, that the bid for spectrum was a good move. But then if you believe that and therefore you believe in net neutrality for wireless, how can you justify Google's current behaviour if not as giving in?
The spectrum bid was about openness, not net neutrality. The four openness conditions of this were: open applications, open devices, open services, and open networks.
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-commitmen...
If you're starting a new company, stay the hell away from any hint that you will try to do the right thing. It just opens you up to people looking at every turn for opportunities to prove that you did evil, that you've sold out, etc. because it validates their self-fulfilling prophecy that corporations must be profit-seeking automatons that would off their own sister for a quick buck.
I guess you want the 90s back, where Microsoft was the behemoth who unabashedly crushed any possible competitors with shady OEM deals, embrace-and-extend, the halloween documents, etc. Maybe you want your closed-source OS's and browsers back, along with their proprietary APIs and platform lock-in. Maybe the next behemoth after Google will do away with any attempts at this openness crap, and you'll be happier because at least they didn't pretend they were going to try to do what's best for end users.
Also if you believe that Google didn't get any advantage out of painting itself the defender of the netizen I think you are being naive. Google played the "we are more ethical than your profit-seeking corporation" and got a large group of followers because of that. Hence why those people now feel betrayed. You can't have your cake and eat it too. :)
And please, don't turn this into a false dichotomy. I am fine with Google doing whatever they want to do: whatever they did now was not illegal, just morally dubious. I don't need to be in favour of Microsoft or lock-ins just because I am against Google acting hypocritically. So stop bring out the boogeyman.
Let me get this straight: you're the one disappointed that Google doesn't have some kind of magic want to make all the carriers agree to absolute net neutrality and I'm the one who's being naive?
> I don't need to be in favour of Microsoft or lock-ins just because I am against Google acting hypocritically.
So what are you in favor of then?
What tech company do you feel better about than Google?
Google got Verizon to agree to Net Neutrality on wireline connections. Who else has done that for you lately?
If you boycott Google into the ground to show them just how very betrayed you feel, who is going to be your next powerful ally? Who is going to push a net neutrality agenda then?
Wtf? What should we be teaching them if when they do "publicly hold themselves to a standard of responsible behavior" they just break it anyway?
>If you're starting a new company, stay the hell away from any hint that you will try to do the right thing.
I have a better idea: be an ethical company, don't lie about putting your principles first when you know that's not how it works.