Google to Create a Private Internet Alternative?

dbucowboy writes "Times Online UK reports that Google is working on a project to create its own global internet protocol network, a private alternative to the internet controlled by the search giant, according to sources who are in commercial negotiation with the company. Should Google successfully launch an alternative internet, it is theoretically possible for them to block out competitor websites and only allow users to access websites that have paid Google to be shown to their users." We discussed this topic during summer last year.

google earth

[gnujoshua]

We all know there real secret plan is to completely buy out AOL and then time warner, and then the movie industry, and then all government anyhow. And then once everyone has downloaded google earth, a virus will be leashed upon us. Imagine the Ring and Snow Crash combined with a beautiful Siren singing to draw you to the nearest monitor, cell phone, or television. And then they can have ultimate control and we will have a perfect utopia with no evil anywhere on earth.

Hey!

[Billosaur]

I seem to remember someone predicting this might happen in the future [cnn.com], or at least something like it.

Skynet

[MDMurphy]

If you were trying to make a Terminator reference, it's Skynet, not Skylab.

Skylab: 1970's orbiting space station:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab [wikipedia.org]

Skynet: 1980's science fiction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet [wikipedia.org]

Re:Google Fanboyism at it's whackiest

[That's Unpossible!]

We who use Google products aren't the end users. We're the product that Google sells to the advertisers. It's the same with any other advertiser or advertising-supported medium.

I don't understand why that's so hard for people to figure out.

Maybe because it's a naive viewpoint that others don't agree with?

People that use Google's products are end-users, by the very definition.

If Google's products sucked, no one would USE them. Clearly they do not suck.

Advertisers pay for your use of the service, since you do not.

Therefore it is an even exchange that benefits everyone:

(a) You get access to a product you enjoy without paying for it.
(b) Advertisers get the opportunity to sell you their products.
(c) Google makes enough money to pay their expenses and earn a nice profit.

Sorry if there's not enough hyperbole in that description for you.

Google private backbone

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Google is not turning itself into a new version of AOL or Compuserve. Google is, however, quietly building out its own network infrastructure. Right now anyone who wants to can do BGP peering with Google at any NAP it happens to have built out to. What does this buy them?

Let's say that I'm a mid size ISP (I happen to work for one so this is a first hand account) and I peer with Google at a regional NAP. What happens then? Any traffic between my network and Google's network will cross that peering point. As a result, I don't have to pay one of my upstream ISP's for bandwidth to Google. Google, in turn, doesn't have to pay their upstream ISP's for bandwidth to my customers. Everyone wins (except for the upstream ISP's of course).

Any large network operator is already doing this kind of thing on a large scale. Google is already doing this. The reason they bought all of that dark fiber is so they can do it without having to rent a bunch of OC-48's from the phone company in order to make it happen. There is no secret, so stop trying to figure it all out.

Re:Google Fanboyism at it's whackiest

[Foolhardy]

You know, there's a great feature of all modern preemptively multitasking operating systems: priorities. Whenever the OS is looking for programs that need CPU time, it always goes to the one with the highest priority. This priority is inherited by any new child processes.

On Windows, you can use the Task Manager to set the priority of currently running processes, and the start.exe program to set the priority upon launch (see start /? for details). For example, set the shortcut for launching your favorite browser to "start /low <rest of command line> and it'll start with low priority.

On Linux and many unicies the program nice is used to start a new program with a different priority. Set your browser lanuching command line to nice <rest of command line> for the default lower of priority. See man nice(1) for details.

This should fix the effect that the flash ads running in the brower have on your compilations, but won't help with heat or power consumption (the brower will still be churning the rest of the time). Like you mentioned, that's what adblock/flashblock are for; prevent them from running in the first place.