Google Now Serves 25% of North American Internet Traffic

sturgeon writes "Wired Magazine claims today that Google is now 25% of the North American traffic with a mostly unreported (and rapidly expanding), massive deployment of edge caching servers in almost every Internet provider around the world. Whether users are directly using a Google service (i.e. search, YouTube) or the devices are automatically sending data (e.g. Google Analytics, updates), the majority of end devices around the world will now send traffic to Google server during the course of an average day. It looks like Wired based their story on a report from cloud analytics and network management company DeepField."

Re:

[SJHillman]

You might want to clarify what you mean - presumably residential customers. After all, most businesses and colo facilities are ISP customers as well.

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[gmuslera]

Unfortunately is not that much, because most people would not know how to appropiately configure them, or be afraid, or should be afraid because depend on insecure software anyway. But would be a way to regain some privacy for most, hosting their own mail server, owncloud or similar solutions, and hosting their own web based software.

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[xrmb]

What if the router at home was somewhat more beefy and could have a few gigabytes of flash and a little cloud-OS... it doesn't need to be on a computer at home and would be totally out of your control.

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[mattventura]

Most home routers have hardware capable of this (after plugging in a USB drive for storage) but the included OS doesn't support it.

"Right To Serve"

[jdogalt]

But the problem is that residential ISPs don't want to have to actually provide "internet service". What they really want to provide is the much simpler and more profitable "client only internet service". I.e. GoogleFiber's 'evil' terms of service-

ComIntercept (FCC->GoogleFiber)"
"The enclosed informal complaint, dated September 1, 2012, has been filed with the Commission by Douglas McClendon against Google pursuant to section 1.41 of Comissions's Rules, 47 C.F.R. // 1.41. Also attached is Mr. McClendon

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[Bengie]

There are only two ISPs that I know of that allow servers, SpeakEasy has a "run any server" policy, and Google Fiber has a "non-commercial server" policy. Every other ISP that I can find all have "No Servers At All" policies.

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[jdogalt]

There are only two ISPs that I know of that allow servers, SpeakEasy has a "run any server" policy, and Google Fiber has a "non-commercial server" policy. Every other ISP that I can find all have "No Servers At All" policies.

Citations needed. Please find me the "no server at all" policy in TimeWarner Broadband's terms of service (or network management practices, or similar official policy documents. I think you'll find that Google was actually exceptionally stupid in this regard. The existing big players at least knew enough about network neutrality to just make pages and pages of chilling terms of service, but without ever going so far as to say "no server at all". Next, please go ahead and give me the citation/URL for Go

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[Bengie]

https://fiber.google.com/help/ [google.com] Under Policies. It has been here since before they started laying the fiber.

"Can I run a server from my home?
Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged."

At some point I found something about TWC stating no servers, but I can't find it. The

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[jdogalt]

"Can I run a server from my home?
Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged."

And you don't sense anything fishy going on with language that self-contradictory? Do you really think that Google is not technically smart enough to word things in a less blatantly self-contradictory fashion than that, if their were no hidden agendas being served?

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[Bengie]

My ISP says "no servers", but then says that they will never monitor or investigate your traffic, except by account holder's request, by judicial request, or substantial proof of illegal activity . If that is the case, when how will they ever know if I am running a server? Their terms of service also do not have an escape for high bandwidth usage, it actually explicitly says that if they ever need to cap bandwidth, they will do it ISP wide and not on a per-customer basis.

The funny thing is their "Open I

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[Bengie]

I forgot to add, my ISP also states that they do absolutely no QoS, traffic shaping, or reserved bandwidth(except for maintenance). All of their services, from TV to telephone is over the same link as your Internet via IP. They just make sure that there is no congestion by keeping ample bandwidth.

In a long chat with a senior technician who had worked at my ISP for over 10 years, he said they proactively monitor all links in their network and make sure they have plenty of free bandwidth so there is no cong

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[jdogalt]

I think you are beginning to see the real mess. As far as the datacenter abuse argument, if I here google try to use that, I'll argue back from the cookie monster angle.

"With advertising claims like these, you need a way to keep commercial users from taking advantage. I assume Google Fiber is similar."

If I'm using the exact same bandwidth as my neighbor, upstream and downstream, but I'm making $1,000,000 per year selling funny cat videos, then yes, I'm taking better advantage of the same resource as my nei

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[Bengie]

Just making sure about the difference between business and commercial uses of Internet. If Google sells a 1Gb line and you're pegging that 1Gb during peak hours because you are selling virtual servers, that is quite different than someone using 50Mb/s running a couple of game servers and taking donations, and you some times burst to 1Gb while seeding on Bittorrent.

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[jdogalt]

First, I hope you mis-spoke when you said "difference between business and commercial uses of the internet". I presume you meant, non-commercial vs commercial. Which gets to the point that finally a journalist has on the record agreed with me about. I.e. the way NetNeutrality currently exists, such distinction is not in the legal domain of ways that ISPs may block or throttle "lawful devices connected to the network" (including servers, small like pi or large like an onyx). I.e. suppose I find a way to

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[ultrasawblade]

Nothing stopping you from using a PC as a router. 2 NICs + Linux or BSD, and some knowledge about how their respective packet filtering tools work, and there you go.

It is involved, and requires lots of networking knowledge, but a lot of fun.

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[hobarrera]

I'm pretty sure that if self-hosting stuff [on a residential conneciton] in the US were allowed as elsewhere, then there'd surely be way, WAY more user-friendly server software out there.
I'm pretty sure Windows XP would have had a "host your website" tool, or something like that.

Re:Blame ISPs

[jdogalt]

Can you imagine the explosion in Internet traffic if ISP customers were allowed to host servers?

Why Yes! Thank you for bringing it up in the first post. Go ahead and follow this rabbit trail if you are more interested in the situation-

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3929983&cid=44170993 [slashdot.org]

I've used the fact that GoogleFiber was my first ISP choice involving IPv6 to press a new novel interpretation of NetworkNeutrality. It seems to be going somewhere. ComIntercept(FCC->Google):

"The enclosed informal complaint, dated September 1, 2012, has been filed with the Commission by Douglas McClendon against Google pursuant to section 1.41 of Comissions's Rules, 47 C.F.R. // 1.41. Also attached is Mr. McClendon's October 24, 2012 complaint forwarded to the FCC by the Kansas Office of the Attorney General. Mr. McClendon asserts that Google's policy prohibiting use of its fixed broadband internet service (Google Fiber connection) to host any type of server violates the Open Internet Order, FCC 10-201, and the Commission's rules at 47 C.F.R. // 8.1-11.

We are forwarding a copy of the informal complaint so that you may satisfy or answer the informal complaint based on a thorough review of all relevant records and other information. You should respond in writing specifically and comprehensively to all material allegations raised in the informal complaint, being sure not to include the specifics of any confidential settlement discussions. ...

Your written response to the informal complaint must be filed with the Commission contact listed below by U.S. mail and e-mail by July 29, 2013. On that same day, you must mail and e-mail your response to Douglas McClendon.

The parties shall retain all records that may be relevant to the informal complaint until final Commission disposition of the informal complaint or of any formal complaint that may arise from this matter. See 47 C.F.R. //1.812-17. (seriously, can't I and Google just depend on the NSA's backups of our records? :)

Failure of any person to answer any lawful Commission inquiry is considered a misdemeanor punishable by a fine... ... ...

http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/mcclendon_notice_of_informal_complaint.pdf [cloudsession.com] [cloudsession.com]
http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/mcclendon_oct24_2012_complaint.pdf [cloudsession.com] [cloudsession.com]

This represents Google getting 'served' this week, my form 2000F 'informal' 53 page complaint that suggests that NetNeutrality provides protections against ISP blocking to my home servers as well as to Skype's. Google has been compelled by the government to respond to me on July 29th. GoogleFiber's 'evil' terms of service prohibit hosting any kind of server without prior written permission against your residential connection. And zero transparency for any alternate server-allowed plan rates, or what kinds of reasons they might use to disallow a requested written permission (which is laughable as the FCC 10-201 NetNeutrality document goes out of it's way to laud Tim Berner Lee's invention of the web atop tcp/ip, specifically, without having to have gotten any permission from any government or network provider)

I forwarded the documents to [e-mail] and requested any insight he might have into the matter. I got an email response (theoretically perhaps spoofed) that read "Thanks.\n\nGood Luck."

Re:

[yusing]

Excellent. I always wondered what gave these M.... F.... the right to do this. The ISPs claim that the riot of traffic to your server would clobber your neighbors' bandwidth. (IE they'd have to actually invest in fiber. Or actually charge you a fair rate for that increased traffic. But it always seemed that the real answer was more sinister.) In this case, that excuse doesn't wash, and so I too wish you good luck.

Confusing

[Anonymous Coward]

That headline is confusing, considering there is a service called Google Now which is known not for its data consumption but its heavy battery draining capabilities.

25%? That is nothing

[andy_from_nc]

All of the world's traffic is sent through an NSA server during the course of an average day.

Re:

[postbigbang]

Not necessarily so.

And worse, the test methodology linked from the post is based on a three-year-old sketchy (and perhaps wheezing vacuum cleaner) and doesn't point to validation as a cumulative measurement. In other words, a bit suspect.

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[kasperd]

if i got a dollar for every percent...I wouldn't call it nothing.

No, if you had a dollar for every percent, you'd have 25$. But that's really not a lot of money.

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[yusing]

Google, NSA, what's the difference?

Also...

[slashmydots]

The NSA Now Spies on 25% of North American Internet Traffic
Lol, jk, it's more.

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[jeffmeden]

The NSA Now Spies on 25% of North American Internet Traffic

Lol, jk, it's more.

You have that backward, headline _should_ read "NSA now has ready access to 25% of North American internet traffic without even needing their own servers"

or maybe "Another win for the cloud"?

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[NotBorg]

The NSA has very few "servers." Their boxes consume not serve.

Let me ask this question:

[bogaboga]

Google is now 25% of the North American traffic...

I have never been a CEO, an probably will never be, but what I wanted to know is what exactly goes on in a CEO's mind (say Steve Ballmer), once a statistic/detail like this is outed.

What really goes on in a mind like his?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Google is now 25% of the North American traffic...

I have never been a CEO, an probably will never be, but what I wanted to know is what exactly goes on in a CEO's mind (say Steve Ballmer), once a statistic/detail like this is outed.

What really goes on in a mind like his?

Better not to ask what goes through Steve Ballmer's mind, but what the _chair_ goes through that Steve Ballmer is going to throw...

Re:

[Joining Yet Again]

If the last five years of Ballmer are anything to go by, he doesn't actually want Microsoft to succeed. So, he's probably pleased to hear how badly he's doing. But what I don't understand is: why? Why is Microsoft deciding to jump on the cloud/tablet bandwagon and turn itself from leader into second rate Apple+Google copycat? What does he stand to gain? Maybe he's bored and has made enough money as a winner, and now he just wants to dick about with this huge plaything he's inherited from Bill. Isn't that a

Re:

[quonsar]

DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Exactly my point.

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[RenderSeven]

what exactly goes on in a CEO's mind (say Steve Ballmer)

Probably "I need a chair"

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[jaseuk]

Probably relief that your not having to pay for all the infrastructure and transit to host Youtube. 20%+ of that traffic is probably Youtube.

I'm sure Microsoft have 5% of NA traffic in Windows updates?

Jason.

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[fulldecent]

>>I have never been a CEO, an probably will never be, but what I wanted to know is what exactly goes on in a CEO's mind (say Steve Ballmer), once a statistic/detail like this is outed.
>> What really goes on in a mind like his?

The same thing you're thinking... "I'll never be a normal consumer, but I just want to know... what exactly goes on in a normal consumer's mind once a detail like this is outed"

Don't forget CDN

[trifish]

CDN (Content Distribution Networks) are even more "God-like". They serve most traffic for the biggest players, like Microsoft.

The stats, metadata, and content must be quite interesting.

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[gmuslera]

Don't forget p2p neither, that should be a big percent of all internet traffic. And CDN serves mostly static content, the same for a lot of people, is more interesting the metadata of personalized, dynamic content.

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[Bengie]

Google is 25% and Netflix is 33%, P2P is only about 18%.

Obviously Youtube

[darkshot117]

Since they are including Youtube as part of this traffic, I can see why it would be such a high percentage. Nearly every other Google service is pretty low bandwidth, but many people, including myself, now use Youtube as a replacement for TV. So I'm not suprised by this statistic at all.

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[jones_supa]

Ditto. YouTube (and areena.yle.fi (clips from Finnish national free-to-air TV)) have completely replaced my TV watching. Digging past the cat videos you can find way more interesting stuff from YouTube than from the traditional tube.

Small ISP..

[Brian]

A relatively small local ISP has 2-3 google devices in their DCs, so that doesn't surprise me Went to do some traceroutes and noticed they were serving all my google traffic to me. Turns out it's at google's request

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[Bengie]

Not my ISP. My trace routes always to to Chicago. 1ms pings to Google would be kind of cool.

Today in the annals of unfortunate capitalization:

[sammy baby]

Just to be clear: the title of this story should be interpreted "The combined traffic of Google's internet properties now account for 25% of all Internet traffic in North America."

Not, as I thought upon my first reading, "Google's mobile device software package, "Google Now [google.com]", accounts for 25% of all Internet traffic in North America." That made me do a spit-take.

Re:

[quixada]

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Google Now is horrible!

Fact.

[girlintraining]

Trying to block out google analytics using various add-ons has been an enlightening experience to say the least. The majority of websites out there have links to third party tracking sites, google analytics figuring highly among them. Trying to exist on the internet without revealing some aspect of one's identity, even for the most mundane thing -- a search for information, is becoming very difficult.

Even here on Slashdot, they've blocked Tor. Amusing -- they let anyone post "anonymously", and unless of course you actually try to post anonymously you might believe it. If a website that caters to those most likely to understand privacy on the internet can't get it right...

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[Animats]

Hm. Abine's DoNotTrackMe doesn't detect Janrain.

I have almost everything blocked, just to see what breaks. Blocking trackers doesn't seem to cause any problems with most sites. Blocking third-party cookies occasionally causes a problem, but not often. Blocking Flash storage of 3rd party data breaks CBS video, but not NBC, ABC, Fox, Youtube, or Hulu. (Until a few months ago, if you blocked all trackers, CBS video skipped the commercials. But they "fixed" that.)

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[radarskiy]

On the upside, Google Analytics still comes from its own domain which has an obvious name, so it's easy to block and then continue with the target page. Some places will pull javascript from a dozen domains named with just random strings.

I don't believe it...

[evilviper]

I don't get it...

Youtube is pretty light on full-length movies and TV episodes, and it's still not extremely common that their videos are available in high definition.

Netflix and Hulu both have much more multi-hour content, higher-quality content that more people are likely to want to watch, and they have most of it in highdef, eating up the pipes. I've ever considered Hulu as a free, viable replacement for live TV, now that their offerings are so extensive, and even includes nightly news programs (only gl

Re:

[ZFox]

and it's still not extremely common that their videos are available in high definition.

I find this to be exactly opposite, now. Maybe not for the Top 10 Boobs in Video Games videos or anything relatively old, but I find that every single regularly uploading Youtube Channel now offers at the very least 720p.

I think that mobile devices help them to gain that #1 spot (I would imagine more people watch 4 minute videos on their phones than full length movies and shows). Also think about videos that have gone viral that everybody has to see. Also think about the number of sites that embed You

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[dgatwood]

I find it very hard to believe that Youtube is so massively beating out all the higher quality video providers, and can only conclude that the data is massively flawed, as TFA starts suggesting about half-way through.

Or, more likely, that people are simply no longer willing to pay money for content. With the exception of Hulu, most of those higher-quality providers charge a monthly fee. Also, most online video content, statistically, is viewed by younger people, who tend to have shorter attention spans on

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[FlynnMP3]

The article said that Google services is on the average is 25% of NA traffic. During prime time hours for obvious reasons and the early morning hours where Netflix and Hulu update their cache servers, the majority of traffic is those 2 sites. That's very believable.

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[mattack2]

I hope you realize you can watch at least some of the PBS shows you mention at pbs.org. At least *many* episodes of Nova & Frontline.

Also, Frontline is available as an audio podcast, and, as a news program, IMHO I can get most of the useful info out of it just by listening to it (at 2x like I do most podcasts).

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[evilviper]

It would be infinitely more convenient if I could just add them to my hulu queue and go. Videos scattered all over the web are a no go for a multimedia PC. HuluDesktop, meanwhile, works pretty well, despite the bugs

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[mattack2]

But you'd have ads on your hulu queue. I don't believe there are any ads (ignoring the 'funding by' part on PBS which is technically an ad but usually very short and not the same type of ads you see elsewhere) on the pbs showings.

Re:

[evilviper]

Ads won't kill me. In fact I'd like to see PBS get a little extra funding out of the deal.

And the other 75% ...

[jamesl]

... is porn.

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[jones_supa]

Well, BitTorrent (and warez in general) probably takes a quite big slice.

Trust Issues?

[MotoRyan]

Please Google, don't screw us. We have put our faith and internet traffic into you. We have rested our emails, the contents of our cell phones, our family photos, and favorite restaurants with you. Please don't be a d&^k and do anything stupid like turn into a giant conglomerate who controls all of Earth's resources and keeps them for only the super wealthy, while the poor are confined to a desolate existence - or something like that I have seen in the Science Fiction movies.

Parse error

[technomom]

Parsing please.......

Is this "Google Now" serving 25%......or "Google" now serving 25%.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion