Network Neutrality Defenders Quietly Backing Off?

SteveOHT writes "Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers. The story claims that Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon have quietly withdrawn from a coalition of companies and groups backing network neutrality (the coalition is not named), though Amazon's name is reportedly once again listed on the coalition's Web site. Google has already responded, calling the WSJ story "confused" and explaining that they're only talking about edge caching, and remain as committed as ever to network neutrality. The blogosphere is alight with the debate.

No worries.

"Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil." We are all fine.

Re:No worries.

That quote references Sergey's role as "the moral compass" [wired.com] for the company. It strikes me that it is way better to have a single individual acting in this role than a committee, or than letting morality be determined by the currents of popular opinion, and here is why I think that:

If it is granted that no morality will be accepted universally as good, but rather individuals will judge the good and evil of someone else's morality according to their own, then it seems reasonable that we don't expect Google to never be considered evil by anyone. Rather, what seems most important about about a corporation trying to have a morality that is independent of (and governs over) their inherent purely capitalistic (not a bad thing) motives/actions, is that their morality remain consistent.

Consistency, and the reasonable expectations it produces, seems to be at the core of developing any relationship that requires trust. For example, I (like most people) avoid making friends with people who believe that it is a good thing to steal things of great value from their friends, but I also avoid making friends with people who flip-flop on their "stealing valuables" stance. That's pretty basic, right? What's relevant here, though, is that I would much rather that my friends/acquaintances/etc be consistent about their beliefs, than being a flip-flopper, that way if I can adjust my own expectations and actions accordingly (i.e. lock up the valuables when they're coming over).

Well, when it comes to businesses, by default I expect them to always be trying to do whatever they can to make the most money. And I have no problem with this - I love the free-market. But, I have an additional attraction to companies that try to restrict their capitalistic tendencies for the sake of the betterment of society and the individuals that compose it, especially the more I agree with their definition of betterment, or "good". However, it seems that one of the better ways for a company to be consistent in its morality would be for that morality to be defined by one person. Although a single person can develop contrary/inconsistent positions within their own morality no matter how hard they're trying to be consistent, this likelihood of inconsistency generally increases all the more, the more individuals you add to the mix.

It would be absurd of me to expect Google's morality to be identical with mine. There will be plenty of things we disagree about. As long as they're consistent, though, I'll at least feel confident in supporting them when I agree with them, and not, when I don't.

google pays

This is google paying more to provide a faster service, not paying more to provide the same service. there is a difference.

Re:google pays

Google is placing servers closer to you which is why it's faster. The server is physically closer.

Re:

What if you're currently in the middle lane?

Re:google pays

Which is exactly why NN is a good things.
A flat internet favors startups with a good idea.
The idea that you can hook up to the net and your packets get the same priority as anyone elses means that you can compete with big name companies. Hell google is an example. A couple of students with some good code did things better than the giants of the time.
Now imagine the same scenario but where google searches were slowed down because they weren't able to pay for the "fast lane" and you might be hearing the term "yahoo it" or "micro it" instead of "google it"

But if one groups gets a fast lane, one group with money gets to put their shops on the highstreet, then it pretty much kills the chances of that kind of competition.

NN defenders should hedge their bets

I keep hearing how we need NN regulations because there is so little competition, but I also don't see much being done by NN advocates to eliminate local and state franchising laws which make it harder for companies to enter cable and broadband markets. If Google were more libertarian than liberal, I would expect them to be proposing a referendum in California to sweep away all of the franchising laws so that there are no local or state limits on who can enter what Internet or TV market.

Part of the logic behind franchising laws is that they give more revenue to local governments, but so what? Most local governments can do without, and if you really need to help them with funding, then the obvious solution is to give them more latitude to tax their residents.

Re:NN defenders should hedge their bets

While I agree with the sentiment, have you EVER known of a government take away a tax? I mean there are toll roads which have been in place around here, and they have been paid off, and the next 50 years of maintenance have been paid off, but they will not remove the tolls. Why? That money goes into the coffers of the government. What about when a government proposes a higher sales tax to pay for a stadium or some such? They have paid it off after a few decades, but won't drop the sales tax, as they can do so much with that "revenue" stream.

Conflict of interest central

The WSJ is now owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns ISPs in Europe. For him net neutrality is a threat to a potential revenue stream. All we're seeing here is the 'editorial independence' of the Murdoch press.

I don't get it...

struggle to see what the problem is here really. It sounds rather like Google are buying dedicated (virtual) pipes to move data around. Millions of companies already do this and no one complains. Flame away, I get that foot in mouth feeling.

Net Neutrality only protects the underdog

net Neutrality is like election finance reform. The people trying to gain access are all for it, but once access is gained, the urgency seems to fade away.

Google needs net neutrality where it is weak, but exploits sweet heart deals where it is strong. The ISPs should be careful, in this economy, the infrastructure that they depend on can be bought by Google or Microsoft. More over, if Google or Microsoft could buy or build a few major backbones, they'll be screaming bloody murder FOR net neutrality.

I think Google has done the numbers, though. They are banking on semi-truck sized compact portable data centers and using existing the existing backbone as merely the pipeline for cache coherency. So when you run google apps, you are getting your applications only a few hops away without sprint in the way.

I will paraphrase an old expression, never under estimate the data bandwidth of a semi-truck sized data center driving two days across country. Think about the number of raw terabytes that can be shipped vs transfered over the backbone.

Is Net Neutrality a Myth?

Net Neutrality is somewhat a myth. Network providers already prioritize their own traffic in many ways like edge caching. Or, they might change the way data is serviced to allow a more requested provider better access. Absolute Net Neutrality is a myth.

What we want to prevent is the practice of shoving a provider purposefully shoving third party content aside in order to better highlight their own content. For example, setting up your network in such a way that a Google search takes three to four seconds to return results while the provider's search results are instantaneous. Users will switch to the faster provider's search engine. Or, maybe streaming content from iTunes or YouTube is no longer smooth. You attempt to listen to a song or play a video, and you get a lot of caching going on. However, the provider's own video and music service is smoother with no caching.

This is the true issue. Is the same firm that provides the pipe (or if you live in Alaska, the tube) to your computer using its advantage to push other business they're way.

There were two types of monopolies that the government use to watch over. One was a horizontal monopoly where a single company captures a vast majority of the market and can use their clout to prevent others from entering the market, thus eliminating competition. An example of this was Standard Oil.

The other, lesser known monopoly was the vertical monopoly where the company controls the entire vertical distribution. Two examples: One was the three television networks. They were prohibited from producing their own shows for the longest time. The reasoning is that if they could, they could favor their own productions over third parties. Instead of hundreds of independent production studios, there would be three who could control payments.

Another example is Boeing. At one time, Boeing was not just an airplane manufacturer, but also owned an airline. This meant that Boeing could favor its own airline with newer equipment at cheaper rates, thus giving its airline a cost advantage over other rivals. This was back in the days when airmail was an important revenue stream for airlines, and Boeing could outbid its rivals. The government separated United Airlines and United Technologies from Boeing back in the 1930s.

This is the actual problem. Local providers of service should not be content providers too. Otherwise, their content would have an unfair advantage over other content providers. This should be enforced not just in the Internet, but also with cable and satellite television providers. You can either provide the pipe to the TV, or you can provide the content over that pipe.

If local providers of Internet service didn't have their own content they were pushing, there would be no issues with net neutrality.

Lawrence Lessig's response

Lessig has a response to this article [lessig.org] on his blog. Quote:

Missing from the article, however, is the evidence that my view is a "shift" or "soften[ing]" of earlier views. That's because there isn't any such evidence. My view is the view I have always had -- whether or not it is the view of others in this debate.

Re:So Google pays money to the ISPs...

No!

You get "fast-priority" because Google put a server closer to you.

This is similar to what Akamai does.

So it's not unfair around the internet, only that google gets faster because it's closer

Re:

Well, this is why network neutrality is so hard to get right. Of course it's not much different from what Akamai does. Of course anybody could do it. But of course it's going to shut out the majority of sites in favor of those which can afford to get in bed with all the last mile ISPs. If Google and all the other big ones go right to the ISPs, why would any ISP work on upgrading their internet connections? Most users will think that other sites are just slow, when in reality the slowness is caused by a dras

Re:So Google pays money to the ISPs...

Which has NOTHING to do with "Net Neutrality", even though the anti-neutrality people don't QUITE seem to get that it doesn't prove their point or that anyone's turning their back on things.

Net neutrality is about applying the same consistent rules for all content and not munging for "quality of service" reasons the stuff. If Google's stuff gets there to you more robustly and quicker, it's because it's spending quite a bit of money putting HARDWARE they maintain closer to you and more of it.

The stuff the net neutrality people are harping on about is where the crap the ISP's are shovelling gets priority unless you pay them protection money.

Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech

I'm glad that Slashdot restores the truth with accurate headlines

Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech

Indeed, the WSJ confused more than the title; they confused caching with prioritization. FTFA:

Google's proposed arrangement with network providers, internally called OpenEdge, would place Google servers directly within the network of the service providers, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The setup would accelerate Google's service for users.

...

The matter could come to a head quickly. In approving AT&T's 2006 acquisition of Bell South, the FCC made AT&T agree to shelve plans for a fast lane for 30 months.

Re:

They also said that Google have changed their stance. If you look at this Google Public Policy Blog post [blogspot.com] from last summer:

Beyond that, we also believe that broadband carriers should have the flexibility to engage in a whole host of activities, including....Employing certain upgrades, such as the use of local caching or private network backbone links

Re:

"I'm glad that Slashdot restores the truth with accurate headlines"

I don't know why such bullshit gets through the slashdot filters, frankly. If you look at the tags on any given article it's clear that most of the slashdot community knows exactly what is going on, even despite attempts to get us up in arms over another misleading headline, or half-baked no-facts 'story'.

Why not just start serving your audience, instead of begging for hits with false, misleading, overblown or just plain stupid headlines

Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech

I've had a suspicion for a while now that the number of comments a story gets ties into Slashdot's revenue stream somehow. Not quite sure what the specifics might be - maybe ad revenue based on page hits or something, but the unsubtle and often pathetically trollish comments the editors ad to some stories are obviously an attempt to stir up lots of argument and comments. If it's not based on revenue, then it's either boredom or social experiment, but it definitely is deliberate.

Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech

it definitely is deliberate.

They could just be incompetent.

Re:Don't bother reading WSJ for tech

I don't know why such bullshit gets through the slashdot filters, frankly. If you look at the tags on any given article it's clear that most of the slashdot community knows exactly what is going on, even despite attempts to get us up in arms over another misleading headline, or half-baked no-facts 'story'.

I'm not sure what bizarro-slashdot you visit, but the one I read generally does not have readers that are aware of what is going on. First, because two or three people tag an article correctly (that's all it took last time I did some testing with the tags) does not mean that even a simple majority of the users/readers understand the story. Second, one need only read through the comments at a low threshold on just about any mildly-confusing story to see that this is the case. Thankfully, we do have a moderation system that generally works pretty well to help filter out the nonsense. And finally, this article is one of those rare instances where an editor here actually did add something to help clarify the issue.

Re:

I'm glad that Slashdot restores the truth with accurate headlines

I'm glad that this is rated funny, but considering the damage that this disinformation, deliberate or not, can cause to the principle of net neutrality, I suggest that we discuss here on Slashdot the ways to make the Wall Street Journal accountable for this dirty info bomb. Let's leverage Slashdot and the Net to turn the table and question the origin of this story. I know: "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence". Well, if it is only incompetence, let's expose the idiot who wrote th

Re:

You can always rely on slashdot to get the headlines right. You just have to wait until they've tried everything else.

- Winston Churchill.