Google Argues Against Net Neutrality 555
An anonymous reader sends this quote from an article at Wired:
"In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC (PDF) that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don't give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections, and that the Google Fiber network is perfectly within its rights to prohibit customers from attaching the legal devices of their choice to its network."
Re:Water and Electricity Analogy (Score:2, Interesting)
That's patently false. Public utilities are well within their rights to prohibit certain uses of their services. My local utility has a prohibition on using electricity for direct, resistive heating. That means no space heaters, no heating strips, and no electric stoves, dryers, or water heaters. It's because the electricity infrastructure is old and was not expanded to keep pace with suburban growth.
When the grid here was built, there were 800 homes, and now there are 12,000.
Utilities can enact any restriction they want in order to maintain reliability of service to everyone who uses it. That include bandwidth caps, server restrictions, and anything else that is a measure to guarantee quality of service.
No utility has an imperative to deliver quantity. Only quality and reliability.
Has Google become too powerful? (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems Google has its hands in everything: Search, social, advertising, online media, emails, cloud hosting, and now connectivity. At which point should we begin to worry?
Re:Don't be evil (some of the time) (Score:5, Interesting)
The net neutrality debate is NOT about preventing abuse, as many naive people would like to believe. It is about ensuring that home users don't develop services that compete with commercial ones.
For example, Google doesn't want anyone starting up community-run OwnCloud instances reducing the attractiveness of Google's services now do they? How hard would it be to run a server to sync your contacts, files, calendar and other PIM data either yourself or with a group of friends? We're pretty much there with open source software like OwnCloud and Zimbra. THIS is what Google and other service providers don't want. They are protecting their ability to monetise you and charge you for the basic services that could be done privately, securely and effectively either yourself or by community groups.
Re:well (Score:5, Interesting)
you are confused.
first of all, we paid the telcoms *billions* of dollars in the 1990s to provide us with high speed networking. guess what they did with that money instead?
now we get 1/20 or less the bandwidth of the rest of the world.
the bandwidth leeches are the telecoms.
if I am paying for x mBytes down and y kbytes up, there is no ambiguity about what that means I am paying for (and note again, fhese rates are *pitifully slow*)
so no, we're not to cry you a river about what the lines can carry. those LEECHES, who have stolen billions from we the taxpayer and we the subscribers, can upgrade their gear so they can provide what they claim to have sold us.
quit being a shill for the LEECHES
Re:Don't be evil (some of the time) (Score:5, Interesting)
Google plans to offer its own business-class services on Fiber. Can't have people running their own servers as competition. This company tends to claim support for whatever is politically popular among techies and then quietly go back on it when it affects their bottom line.
Have they gone back, though? Speaking as a strong supporter of personal servers and one who has been running such servers on consumer grade Internet connections for 15 years, this is first time I've heard it suggested that Net Neutrality implied that ISP's needed to allow servers on their consumer Internet offerings.
Net Neutrality, as I've understood it, means that an ISP must treat the packets to and from the Internet the same. For example: They should not impair packets from Yahoo or give preferential treatment to packets from Google. It means no matter who you are or how much money you have not have to bribe ISP's, as long as you can host a server, your customers will be able to reach it. It does not say that any ISP must always allow their customers to connect servers directly to their network.
I think that geeks are seeing "Don't be evil" and assuming that this means that if Google is on their side on some issues that Google has to be on their side on all issues.
Re:Don't be evil (some of the time) (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now it's all just talk, so yeah... that would be a start.
As of Today; I have no Google fiber, and Google fiber is nowhere even near my state.... all of the broadband providers in may area forbid running servers without buying an uber-overpriced "business" service that increases the monthly price tag from the residential $120/month for 3 Megabit cable from Charter to a minimum of about $800/month
Where on earth do you live? Our office in the Detroit area pays about $180/mo for 100Mbit down/10Mbit up (cable modem), with a static IP, and we can run pretty much whatever we want on it (I say pretty much because if we started e-mail spamming, for example, I'm sure they'd cut us off). My residential service costs $75/mo for 30Mbit down/3Mbit up (also cable), and I have never once been scolded for running any kind of server.
Why should I really be too upset about Google restricting the use of its bandwidth to non-commercial purposes for the 5 or 6 people they are serving, again?
I believe the point is that Google is now publically arguing against net neutrality after championing it for so many years. It's not about their customers, it's about their lobbying power and money and how it could adversely affect us in the not-so-distant future.
When Google was young (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe that when Google was young, as a whole it really did believe in ideals such as "Don't be evil". I don't think anyone would publicly adopt such a motto which is so easy to ridicule unless they really meant to stick to it. Their actions in the early years also largely support this view.
However, as Google matured as a money-making corporation, its character gradually changed. Idealists left and more corporate hardened souls were taken on. In some ways, this is not unlike the process of growing up from an idealistic teenager living in a world of absolutes to an adult having financial commitments and facing temptations to cut corners to meet the bottom line.
I think that there is a struggle internally now within Google for its soul- whether it should stick to its ideals and risk financial loss, or take the easy way and act like every other company out there and prioritise profit.
We can, hopefully, reverse the trend by reminding Google (loudly) of its ideals and perhaps shaming them into acting better. Although Google is sliding towards the evil side of the scale, it is still way too early to give up on them. Think of Google as a wayward child verging into criminality; you can either write them off and ensure that another hardened criminal joins the world, or try to teach them what is wrong and hopefully, maybe they will change for the better.
Companies don't exist to be nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Companies don't exist to be nice, they exist to make money for their owners and shareholders.
And this shabby excuse has been used time and again to justify the many evils companies inflict on the world in their pursuit of profit. Such as Union Carbide's poisoning of India [wikipedia.org].
There was a time before companies existed, when businesses bore the names of their founders such as Walter & Sons. Often the owners refrained from acts of outright evil because they did not want to taint their name, and their sons and grandsons similarly restrained themselves so as not to soil their grandfather's name. If that was not sufficient deterrent, the fact that they were held personally liable often did.
With the creation of companies, responsibility became diffused. Bad things were done by 'the company' -except that this was a lie. Companies do not have independent will, their actions are dictated by management who often disappear after collecting their fat bonuses.
It is too late now to argue companies should nto exist- they do, and are here to stay. But since companies enjoy the status of separate legal entities, they should be judged accordingly. If an individual behaves in an evil manner, I judge them evil, and the same with companies. If an individual commits evil to get rich, I would not excuse his behaviour if his excuse was that his sole aim in life was to get rich. We should also not accept the same excuse for companies. Do evil, be judged evil, no excuses.
Re:Don't be evil (some of the time) (Score:5, Interesting)
They can specify an upstream bandwidth without violating net neutrality, but to put arbitrary limits on what data I can send in my upstream packets is definitely violating neutrality.
That's true.
You've convinced me. It's like the policy that Telstra in Australia once had, where they wanted to charge you extra to have more than one PC access the net behind a NAT device. It's bullsh*t, because they should have the right to limit actual resources, not make arbitrary stereotypical rules.
As AC said in reply to my previous post - Arbitrarily blocking "server" traffic is behind both the letter, and (after a quick read of wiki) the intent of the Net Neutrality act.
However, we are beginning to see this plan be released in Australia, not just to arbitrarily segment the market, but because a residential plan will no longer get a real-world IP. You will be given a private IP and be one of 300 people sharing a single IPv4 address, masqueraded with carrier-grade NAT.
Why? Because when IPv4 address space is worth $20 per IP, putting 300 customers behind one IP address saves $6,000. Putting 30,000 customers behind only 100 IP addresses saves > $500,000.
So, the question is, if Google were supporting this arbitrary decision with a technical limitation done for commercial purposes - is it still a net neutrality issue?
After all, all "servers" are being treated equally.