Questions to Ask at Google-Fiber Announcement | Hacker News Reader

Questions to Ask at Google-Fiber Announcement

precursorblog.com

25 pointshk__214 comments

Here's a fun game: if you start at the beginning of this blog's archive[1] and browse forward, you can spot the exact moment when Google's support for net neutrality landed it on the blogger's enemies list. At first, the anti-Google posts are entirely about net neutrality[2], but in 2007 they start to shift towards more general complaints. Interestingly, the blog started mixing in pro-Microsoft posts at the same time (previously, it was pro-Verizon). By 2010 the blogger had started writing most of his posts about Google, and was now being funded directly by Microsoft[3].

2011 and 2012 saw the addition of pro-AT&T and anti-Netflix posts, with a sudden surge of pro-SOPA posts starting in late 2011. After SOPA failed, the posts changed again to become almost exclusively anti-Google or pro-Verizon (with the occasional anti-Netflix thrown in). The pro-AT&T posts seem to have tapered off.

[1] http://precursorblog.com/archive/200605

[2] http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Scott-Cleland-Google-Usin...

[3] http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2009/06/google-crit...

I don't like these sort of hand wavy "I'm just saying..." implied conspiracy theories.

What specifically are you suggesting?

Here's an excerpt from a recent Wired article at http://www.wired.com/print/techbiz/it/magazine/17-02/ff_kill...

"Over the past couple of months, several AT&T allies have spoken out against what they describe as Google's disdain for privacy. Scott Cleland, who serves as CEO of a telecom-funded consultancy, has turned his widely read blog into a Google attack machine, with posts titled "Why Google Is the Biggest Threat to Americans' Privacy" and "Google Protecting Its Privacy to Invade Your Privacy." "

That whole article is pretty interesting. It also mentions how Microsoft-hired lobbyists succeeded in getting the American Corn Growers Association and the Dominican American Business Network (!) to weigh in against Google. Here's another article about that: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9965555-38.html

This sort of ad-hominem attack doesn't really have a place on Hacker News. It's no secret that Scott Cleland is an anti-Google shill, available for hire by fortune 500 companies to write books and testify in front of Congress, but the correct response to his arguments is to point out the gaps in his reasoning and prove him wrong.

Instead, this is an appeal to groupthink to disregard the fair (and not-so-fair) questions raised in the blog post, instead of responding critically to them.

While I love the pointing out of logical fallacies, this is not necessarily an ad-hominem attack on the argument. I think this post provides important context for the reading of the article. Since I did not know of the blogger's background, this comment allowed me to put it into context.

Last time I checked, it was even disclosed at the end of each article.

Update: not this one, unfortunately.

I have no problem with this sort of ad-hominem attack. Knowing this about Scott Cleland lets me know that it's not worth my time to respond critically to his posts.

That does not make any sense. Yes, arguments should matter by their own merit, but why would we bother with a list of arguments curated by somebody that is inherently a fraud?

With the same logic you can spent a full life carefully dismissing idiotic arguments on Youtube.

Who has time for that? So his comment is very relevant. The submission itself is tainted, and goes on the "maybe ill look at that, if i live forever" pile, together with racial arguments, conspiracy theories and the political spin city puke.

Wow, while some of these questions are fair, others are not.

* All ISPs can do DPI on their customers broadband, some do it to greater extent than others

* Calling this "luxury broadband" is perhaps a stretch since the lowest tier offered is slightly faster than low-end DSL, while being priced similarly ( if you base it on the $25/mo for the first year)

* I'm sure if any of Google's competitors wanted to run fibre and make KC a central part of a major fibre launch event, they could have gotten similar subsidies;

* Yeah, lets bring up the wifi street view case just because it makes google look bad, and see if we can try to make it pertain to this article

As far as subsidies go, I have some sympathy as I'm not a huge fan of it (though I might go after stadium deals first, as IMO infrastructure is a better investment than sports teams). However, time and time again has shown that the easiest way to get higher speed broadband is to start a municipal FTTH project in your city. I don't know how many times (DSL, next gen DSL, DOCSIS 3, FioS) has been "1 year away" for multiple years in places I've lived. However, cities that get past the early stages of planning municipal fibre end up with the newest stuff PDQ.

Note: according to an article at http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21172515/obrien-micro... published today in the San Jose Mercury News, Scott Cleland "gained funding -- to a degree that he won't disclose -- from Google's competitors, including Microsoft."

If you read Cleland's writing, he's pretty consistently anti-Google, to an even greater degree than Florian Mueller for example (who also receives funding from Microsoft, as well as from Oracle).

Sidenote: The writer is selling his own book - "Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc."

Great questions. They should be directed at not just Google but other players in the market and across a number of industries as well. I have a feeling that in many cases answers would not be pleasant to hear.

I agree that there are a lot of excellent questions there. The author references the Google-Kansas City agreement [1] throughout the article, and has articulated some very real, pressing concerns about the terms of that contract.

It's my understanding, however, that ALL of the infrastructure providers for a city will have similar contracts with the city, but I've been unable to find any online records for Google's competitors ATT & Time Warner. I imagine that while each of the contracts will feature significant differences, the average person would balk at the privileges the city government affords to each of these companies.

Without those documents to put the Google-KC contract into context, I'd hesitate to draw any conclusions from Google's (possible) response.

[1] http://www.netcompetition.org/wp-content/uploads/Google-Kans...

Nice, love the tough questions!

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