Google Fiber Pondering 9 New Metro Areas 172
New submitter GreyWanderingRogue writes "Google is looking to expand beyond the three current cities using Google Fiber. They're currently still in the discussion stages, but they've invited 34 cities in 9 major metropolitan areas to talk about deployment. They'll need to study 'topography (e.g. hills, flood zones), housing density, and the condition of local infrastructure' in each of the cities, so it will be interesting to see how many make it to completion. Check the map to see if you're one of the lucky few. The Atlanta, Portland and Raleigh-Durham areas each have a cluster of cities being considered. Not in one of these cities? It might be a while yet..."
I'd rather eat google fiber... (Score:4, Interesting)
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A Co-op ISP looks to be the best bet, but I think it would be killed by the Telecom Cartel.
Cartel is when corporations scheme to price fix, and to equally screw the citizens.
Monopoly is when one company owns it all and crushes any competition.
Cartel can be far more subtle, and it is the current paradigm here.
What is wild is that the US taxpayer paid $300 billion for a broadband upgrade,
and the Telco's took the money and run.
Whole story here:
http://www.newnetworks.com/bro... [newnetworks.com]
Don't expect a fair and free trade
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No.
Do you always here socialized and then compare it to WCS?
Idiot.
Not that I am surprised. You sig shows very clearly that you can't actually read. Or are so god damn stupid you can't actual understand facts.
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Absolutely. You ignore that the taxes per person to do such a thing are WAY WAY lower than what we pay now for internet access.
Way fucking lower. Holy shit, like, fucking, incredibly lower.
Did i mention this would be cheaper?
way.
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Good news!
http://www.netzero.net/dialup [netzero.net]
I really hope... (Score:2)
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...that they consider my area.
Me too! Come over to Albuquerque, Google. Please! It's almost on a straight line between Kansas City and Phoenix, so it shouldn't be too hard to add us into your network.
Note to end of story... (Score:5, Informative)
Google bought the tax payer funded network in Provo, Utah for $1.
http://transmission.xmission.com/2014/02/19/google-fiber-in-salt-lake-city
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I'll buy that for a dollar!
I just hope that when it gets here, it is reliable (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine has had Google Fiber in Kansas City for several months. She still keeps here DSL as backup because Google Fiber goes down frequently, sometimes several times in one day.
Re: I just hope that when it gets here, it is reli (Score:4, Informative)
Kansas Citian here. I've never had problems with Google Fiber going down. I've had instances where my wi-fi seemed to momentarily drop, but that happened occasionally with my old router too and it hasn't ever lasted more than a few seconds. The only prolonged outage that I've noticed was an hour or so when (ironically) I couldn't access google.com, but the rest of the internet still worked fine.
Re: I just hope that when it gets here, it is reli (Score:4, Interesting)
I've only had Google Fiber 3 weeks, but so far it's been solid. Maybe a 2-second hang here and there, but otherwise fine.
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I've had precisely zero problems with Comcast.
With Comcast.
Anecdotal evidence about ISPs is of the same value as anecdotal evidence about hard drive manufacturers.
Re: I just hope that when it gets here, it is reli (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, the problems with Comcast have hardly ever been about poor connection quality; they've always been about deliberate sabotage (e.g. poisoning DNS, throttling Netflix, encrypting local cable channels, etc.) or hostile customer service (imposing sneaky BS fees, making customers go through Hell to get a CableCard instead of a set-top box, etc.)
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this is 2014
put everything on wifi with a few dozen of your neighbors and then blame the ISP for every hiccup
i used to have xbox live disconnect when playing single player. put everything on cat5 and most of my problems magically vanished.
Wifi is like the old Layer 1 networks. everyone is broadcasting all their traffic into the air around you and your router and devices are trying to filter it out. that's why it keeps disconnecting
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Yeah seen same issues with Wifi, its not perfect.
My friend had problems with latency in real games, and
tried his cat5 and it all went away.
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Phoenix AZ Google Fiber (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not run fiber in the entire valley instead of just Scottsdale and Tempe? The north and west sides of Phoenix has a lot of families that could use 1 Gbs or 10 Gbs Internet.
Re:Phoenix AZ Google Fiber (Score:4, Informative)
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From what I hear, it is mostly based on how much the city is willing to bend backwards to accommodate a quick rollout. Google doesnt have to work with uncooperative cities.
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From what I hear, it is mostly based on how much the city is willing to bend backwards to accommodate a quick rollout. Google doesnt have to work with uncooperative cities.
This is true. Overland Park [kctv5.com] got dropped because the city government was being uncooperative.
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Scottsdale and Tempe seem good, but Chandler/Gilbert seem pretty glaring omissions.
Nobody cares about the West Side except the stadium area. It's all slowly turning into Metro Center.
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303? The retirement communities on Lake Pleasant Parkway need fiber, for sure, but I'm not sure they need faster internet.
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Of course, if the other locations are ran by idiots who do not care, then Google will likely not do it.
atl/ga corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
coworkers & I were just talking about need to proactively appoint an independent prosecutor w/expedited subpoena/investigative power to find/expose and financial ties between comcast/at&t and any politicians who will inevitably try to block/obstruct this!
And what about Alpharetta? (Score:2)
Screw Alpharetta (Score:2)
All this exurban sprawl to Alpharetta needs to stop. The only thing that has been accomplished is that people living elsewhere in the metro area are screwed because all the infrastructure is designed to facilitate a commute towards downtown, while now the center of mass for jobs is near (or outside) the Perimeter. It is absurd that people can live right next to downtown, yet are forced to suffer through an hour commute anyway. Anything that shifts development back inside the Perimeter is a good thing!
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Hope you are ready for an IRS audit, lol.
New Slogan for Google (Score:2)
"No matter how much we suck, we still don't ComcastTimeWarner suck. Yet."
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Based on my experience with TW internet, and my mom's with TW cable, it would take a hell of a lot of suck to compete with them. Don't know about Comcast, but it sounds like they're no improvement over TW.
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See, this is strange. Because I'm a former Adelphia current Time Warner customer and I have no complaints. I even called twice this week to upgrade my speed (first call they agreed to the free 100Mbps upgrade, made notes and told me to get a DOCSIS 3.0 router).
They answered the calls in about 5 minutes and took care of everything very professionally. And now I have great speed and it hasn't been down for the whole year (maybe once or twice at 4am).
Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Competition is needed. Meanwhile, for all the people who are pissed off about Comcast, there is a solution.
Buy a controlling share in the company.
Before you scoff, consider all the companies that would benefit from Comcast not being an obstacle (Google, Netflix, Apple, Charter, Twitter, plus about 100,000 startups). For about $67 billion at the current share price, Comcast could be under new ownership.
$67 billion is chickenshit money up against the assets and revenue of all the parties with a horse in this race.
Vote out the board, fire the management, vote in a new board, hire new management, and turn Comcast into a defender of net neutrality instead of a problem.
That's how capitalism works. You know what the best part is? Ain't a fucking thing Comcast can do about it. The company is publicly traded.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
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I motion could be raised that with enough initial support could be put to a vote from the entire shareholder group, allowing your to combine your voices.
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LOL, a public coop buyout of comcast, that would be both funny and amazing.
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I am surprised by this, unless the premium share holders made it happen
then it follows my premise of common vs. premium stock and voting rights.
http://www.srr.com/article/pri... [srr.com]
Ever heard of poison pills? (Score:5, Informative)
Buy a controlling share in the company.
There are tools that corporations use [1] [2] to prevent such efforts. Often it's to protect them from a hostile takeover, but the same tools could be used to prevent a populist uprising as well.
The corporatocracy will not allow us (say even if you did get a kickstarter or other such crowd funded initiative) to dominate Comcast. If this initiative were started, Comcast would have no shortage of tools to put it down.
Majority fan/employee owned ventures are the exception, not the norm, for this reason (amongst others - coordinating large groups of diverse interests is not easy).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]
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Sorry you're bitter about it. I've lived it, been through 2 hostile acquisitions (one on one side, one on the other) as an employee of one of the companies. In the end what sealed both of them is the same investor class (i.e., professionally managed pension funds and private big-money hedge funds) owned both the companies that were being acquired and doing the acquiring, and they were essentially bought off on the deal.
Look at Comcast: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?... [yahoo.com]
Go pitch this to them, and see what t
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Sorry you're bitter about it.
Stop the childish attempts to put me on the defensive. Grow up and discuss the subject matter like an adult.
Go pitch this to them
How Comcast feels is irrelevant. You go to their shareholders and you buy the stock, and keep buying until you get a 50.1% majority, then vote the board out.
You make this sound like science fiction. A large enough block of cash and stock controls the discussion. Comcast can fall just like U.S. Steel and Texaco and TWA and Marvel and Hostess all the other companies that have been bought out. It's j
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Wouldn't this just open the newly-managed Comcast up to the shareholder action for not maximizing the value of their investment? I'm sure they'd have little trouble proving in court that the monopoly status they've enjoyed for so many years is critical to their shareholder value, and you'd have taken pretty obvious, deliberate steps to erode that market advantage and therefore that value. For the good of everybody else, sure, but the remaining 49% of shareholders will probably be pissed.
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Completely impossible .. according to their ownership structure, 83% of the outstanding shares are owned by institutional investors.
Meaning, even if you created an artificial scarcity by buying up all shares available at any given time .. you'd still be way short of enough to effect change (and in any event, a bunch of individual investors wouldn't have any representation on the board).
You might be able to do it with an activist institutional investor like Carl Icahn .. but someone like him wouldn't be moti
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Public shares are not voting shares in some corporations.
Unless you buy the special shares which are often not available to the general public
you can't vote the shares.
Alot of corporations pretend they listen to the public shares, but they don't,
its only the big money special shares that are usually offered at IPO and
mostly to key founders and investors of the company.
So when you think common stock has voting power, no it does not anymore
in most corporations.
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over 51% is owned by board members. SO..good luck.
Of course, once you intentions are knows, stock will drop like hell. Now, you are thinkg you will then buy it up, right? wrong. The board will then sue you for violation of share holder right
But lets say most board member also sell their shares and you now own 51%
That does not mean you get to do what ever you want to do. The other 40% also have rights, so when you action continue to cause the stock price to drop, they will sue you, take away your board contr
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Who value profit like everyone else.
Of course, and that's why Comcast does what it currently does. It's profitable.
It's more profitable to restrict competing services.
It's more profitable to become the regional monopoly.
It's more profitable to charge a high price while not putting that money into the infrastructure needed to provide excellent service.
Many people will choose the better company with the better service, maybe even paying more to do so. But when you're the only game in town, you can focus solely on profit without regard to conseq
The condition of local infrastructure (Score:1)
The condition of local infrastructure
Translation: If you've already basically laid most of the fiber for us, we'll buy in and finish it up.
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As a first step, this seems reasonable. Any sane company would take this approach.
Take over a half-finished product and see it through to completion. The hope, going forward, is that Google can leverage the revenue generated from the roll outs thus far to start building all new infrastructure.
Fingers crossed.
I just learned about San Antonio's existing dark f (Score:2)
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There was a project to build out fiber somewhere in Southern California (I cant find a cite for exactly where) but it was abandoned (to the point where there are a bunch of dead fiber ends sticking out of a wall somewhere where they just cut the fiber off when they abandoned it).
If the fiber is still there it seems perfect for Google to come in and take over. Anyone remember where that was or know whether it would make sense for Google to come there?
Can't wait (Score:3)
Come on Google, don't forget about Greenville! (Score:2)
http://www.wearefeelinglucky.c... [wearefeelinglucky.com]
Just Supporting Already Strong Tech Cities (Score:4, Interesting)
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None of the cities in the Atlanta area could be considered technologically advanced. Most of them are actually just suburbs, and not well-off suburbs at that. Sandy Springs would be the only well-off exception.
As an example, the cities of College Park, Hapeville and East Point don't have a single Walmart between them, One is about to open soon and the residents are thrilled to finally have a shopping option. Compare that to a more typical suburb which might have several stores and protesters blocking m
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Decatur and the northeastern half of the City of Atlanta are well-off, along with Roswell and Alpharetta. Metro Atlanta is a pretty big tech hub (mostly the midtown and buckhead neighborhoods in Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Roswell and Alpharetta, plus some in Duluth).
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While Kansas City has some tech companies (Sprint, Cerner, Garmin) and a fair number of engineering firms .. it's not exactly a burgeoning tech center.
No NYC (Score:4, Funny)
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Are you crazy? The Northeast will never, ever, ever see this.
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Google is just looking for Low hanging fruit, to make it seem like they are making a change, while side stepping solving the problem.
We got Big Cities NY, LA, Boston... That Google will not go too, because they will have a big fight against the current carriers.
We got Rural and small cities area... That need band with too, however Google won't go there because they are too small to sound good. So they go with these mid sized cites.
Not doing evil, doesn't mean you are doing good.
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Or they are using the low hanging fruit to learn the ropes, and will eventually tackle the harder regions (if they turn a profit).
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Using low hanging fruit to let consumers and citizen know there are actual alternatives is being good.
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Crap, we're not on the list. Somehow, even the biggest city in the US can't get a decent fiber roll-out. That's how you know the "population density" arguments are BS.
NYC has bureaucracy. Apparently sufficient bureaucracy to overcome the advantages of population density.
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Same for L.A. area! :(
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Even ignoring the bureaucracy and lobbying, the problem for NYC is that its so heavily built up (and with such a tangle of infrastructure already) that trying to run fiber would be a nightmare. Not to mention trying to convince the owners of all the 100s of apartment buildings and such to let Google (or anyone else) roll out new infrastructure into those buildings with all the disruption and things that entails.
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Need for a Stretch Goal for Google (Score:4, Funny)
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Have Google buy TW? (Score:2)
OTOH, Google does not control that much video content (utube not withstanding), nor does TW cable. So, it would be a much better fit with Google than with Comcast.
In addition, Google will no doubt have net neutrality over their lines.
wrong strategy (Score:2)
Cartel Busting (Score:2)
Google may or may not consider this a business model, but what it does do is put the DSL & cable internet providers on notice that there may be another option. Since the decline of competition and the retirement of "sharing" that last mile, the only two options have been cable or phone company for internet access. 14 years ago, PacBell was laying fiber to San Diego neighborhoods, that project got canned when AT&T swallowed PacBell. Maybe Google could pick up those strands for $2.00. I'll chip i
They shouldn't have published the list (Score:2)
Now that Google has made their fiber expansion plans public, I expect to see laws drafted (that may or may not pass) in every one of those cities blocking Google fiber in order to protect the existing monopoly/cartel.
If you want to get fiber into a city, you have to sneak it through without the local telco or cableco knowing, otherwise they will spend every last penny (of their customers money) on lawyers and "campaign donations", in order to prevent new competition
I have yet to hear of a single fiber rollo
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It's a great place to live, but good luck finding tech jobs there. And San Antonio is not exactly my definition of "densely populated". Sure it's like #9 or #10 in US city population, but it's like #29 or so in metro population because there isn't much of the metro area that consists of other incorporated cities. (Maybe it'll give Fry's a reason to finally build a store there, ha ha.)
Now if they can just get started on lighting up Austin, I'd be happy.
And I think RTP is a good choice for a GF city.
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I wonder if the existence of miles of fiber just waiting in San Antonio [therivardreport.com] is part of the reason they're considering it.
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That is also why Google picked Austin over a place like San Ant.
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apparently not. There is a real reason why those that can afford it and have to live in Texas, will choose Austin.
Only if you're a nerd or hippie with money - otherwise you'd choose Dallas or Houston if you've got cash.
The fact that Google is looking at San Antonio before considering Dallas/Houston for their fiber service should tell you something.
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Google will get to you... by 2354A.D. (Score:2)
What pisses me off is that Google goes to areas that are already well serviced by other vendors, and taking FOREVER to roll out. At this rate, they'll manage 10% coverage in the US by the turn of the next century.
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You sound like this is a govt. initiative or charity?
Google are building momentum and are most likely choosing the most economical places first. The fact you are under serviced is because....
In my country the government are currently rolling out fibre to the home all over the nation.
And guess where they are starting? The cities where they already have high speed ADSL with full coverage. (NB: aside from a couple of wealthy "test" towns in the proof of concept)
In the country you are lucky to have ADSL at
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The VERY best part of it is that the US taxpayer doled out $300 billion in corporate welfare
to the Telcos and they took the money and run.
It was supposed to be used to provide broadband to every US home.
As usual, corrupt corporations + corrupt government ( left & right ) = legalized theft
http://www.newnetworks.com/bro... [newnetworks.com]
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In that case you have something to be upset about...but not with google...
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You do not have a "left" in your country. What you erroneously refer to as the mainstream "left" (i.e. Democrats) is actually a centre right party at best.
Of course the typical US discourse is somewhat myopic and hence why the confusion...
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google is in the business of making money, like every other company in america. in fact google has higher profit margins than almost every other greedy and evil corp as branded by slashdotters and netizens
going into well served areas means a lot of potentially angry customers who can't wait to switch
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going into well served areas means a lot of potentially angry customers who can't wait to switch
Do you think those who are currently stuck on dialup or 1mbps DSL are happy about the fact
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They may be serviced by other ISPs, but the service in many cases is shit. Right now I'm dealing with Cox who over the last year or two has turned to crap. I regularly get dropped from doing whatever it is I'm doing because of them, and they continue to raise their rates. I'm paying about twice as much as I used to pay 3 years ago, and 3 years ago I wouldn't randomly have the service get disconnected four times a week (it usually happened once a month at worst.)
Just yesterday I was playing hearthstone and w
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You could try some of the horrible satellite internet, but it beats dial up to be sure.
Other option would be a community funded fiber line and then a wireless ISP
for the town there.
Some rural towns have down their own Internet Co-ops, if your small enough
the Tecos won't sabotage you too bad.
http://www.ncic.net/ [ncic.net]
http://www.micemn.net/ [micemn.net]
Re:Exchanging one bad master for another (Score:5, Interesting)
Trust an advertising company to give you unfiltered internet access?
Do it trust a company with a history of supporting open source software, and open standards, that lest me see the data the collected when i am using their services and edit and or delete it, more than I trust a cable company or cell service provider? yes I do trust Google more.
Is Google perfect? No they have made mistakes but they try to not be evil more often then not, and that is far more than I can say about most other companies in their line(s) of business.
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No they have made mistakes but they try to not be evil more often then not, and that is far more than I can say about most other companies in their line(s) of business.
They might not be so evil at present. But what happens years down the road when they decide to be evil? They'll have this enormous treasure trove of data, and widespread control of information infrastructure. You know it's inevitable, right? They will not have this anti-evil philosophy forever...and in the meantime they chum the water...we eat happily...they begin pulling the net in around us.
Re:Exchanging one bad master for another (Score:4, Insightful)
They might not be so evil at present. But what happens years down the road when they decide to be evil? They'll have this enormous treasure trove of data, and widespread control of information infrastructure.
The cable and phone companies have had more data for over a decade, and they are already evil. Moving from a known evil to a potential evil is s good thing.
You know it's inevitable, right?
It is not inevitable, for two reasons.
First, companies become evil when the people making decisions find it in their interest to be evil. As long as Google is insanely profitable and requires user trust to stay profitable, they have no reason to be evil.
Second, the two founders together have more than half of the voting shares. They can say "no" to anything other shareholders say. They can fire any manager, without any other shareholder's consent. They are already too rich to care about any extra money evil actions might make. They are identified with Google, and any evil Google does reflects on them personally. Google will never do anything they think is evil, and they have a track record of good judgment.
They will not have this anti-evil philosophy forever...and in the meantime they chum the water...we eat happily...they begin pulling the net in around us.
The phone company has a log of your cell phone's location at all times. They are already willing to do anything for a buck. Why not rant about them? If you whine about what the innocent might be guilty of in some imagery future, while tolerating the actions of the truly guilty, you are part of the problem.
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comcast and att already ARE evil, so if it's a choice over who could be evil in the future and who IS evil now, i'll take a chance with the future...
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They might not be so evil at present. But what happens years down the road when they decide to be evil?
no corporation is ever evil, they are just profit seeking. google is profitable if they have a lot of users, so it's in their best interest to keep them happy. doing things people don't like w/ their data doesn't make them happy. more than most other companies that possess your personal data, google has a motive to not abuse it.
also, have you considered what happens if your health insurance company becomes evil? your mortgage provider? your auto insurance company? you have a lot to worry about.
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Trust an advertising company to give you unfiltered internet access?
Unfiltered? Sure.
Untracked and without extra targeted ads? No.
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You've obviously not had to deal with Comcast tech support.
I cannot think of a worse master.
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Google isn't actually an advertising company though, they just get revenue from advertising. Similarly Comcast is a cable company that also gets revenue from advertising.
Horribly profitable (Score:2)
It's where comcast makes all of their money. No content to create/buy/manage, just gravy.