Can Google Save Us From Slow Internet 240
CoveredTrax writes "As part of the beta test of their new gigabit fiber network, Google has provided Stanford University with mouthwateringly high-speed Internet. Since the program was announced, the service, which is now being provided free to students and faculty in the Palo Alto area, has got a lot of people to asking (sometimes begging) that their city be next on Google's list for communication salvation. But can Google save us all from inferior web access? And more importantly, is it a good idea to let them?"
There will be a time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There's still hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
The first one is always free (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks that Google is doing this out of the kindness of their hearts is silly.
Google doesn't care whether you have high-speed access. They want to be able to trace your browsing and other internet usage habits, and they want to make sure they can serve up their ads in a way that minimizes the requirements on their resources.
Re:There will be a time... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think people realize how much that web advertising drives Google. If you look at their financial reports, it's the majority of their revenue. They're not so much an IT company as they are an advertising company that happens to use IT.
This is also why you get things like Google refusing to implement the Do Not Track feature in Chrome [computerworld.com] as well as the absence of anonymity on Plus.
Re:There will be a time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The first one is always free (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, they care to the degree that it drives more Google ad views. However, their PR department has been quite successful in convincing techies that everything they do is in the name of engineering and open technology rather than driving their core business of web ads.
Re:There will be a time... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you care about privacy, you use encryption to communicate and you obfuscate tracking no matter who your ISP is.
The internet is not private.
Re:There will be a time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's to their advantage to provide fast internet - fast internet = more youtube(etc) watching, more of their ads shown.
Comcast(etc), on the other hand wants exactly the opposite: They make no money off of providing fast internet, and lose money as people watch less TV.
So, yes, google would be better.
Re:Google? Possibly. What we need is competition. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dozens of municipalities here in Sweden laid their own fibers and provided open and equal access to ISPs (and IPTV, IPPhone). Building owners/coop-associations generally have to pay to get the last few meters pulled into the building, but the fibers are there already.
I think publicly owned infrastructure is the only model that can provide true competition, if one of the ISPs own the fibers they will always have a leg up on the others no matter how many laws regulate their behaviour.
Re:There will be a time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do our current ISPs offer better privacy?
YES.
As long as the US has legislation like the PATRIOT ACT and the federal courts are fine eroding the 4th amendment, there will not be better alternatives.
The difference is that PATRIOT act stuff is limited in scope. The feds show up and demand the tracing of specific users. Google is all about wholesale data-harvesting of each and every user because that's their business model.
Don't even try to take this as a defense of the PATRIOT act. But, at least so far, we do not have a legal requirement for ISPs to record anything about all of their customers. Fear-mongering politicians keep trying to get such laws passed, but it hasn't happened yet.