It was a great slogan for a transformative company that was telling the world that it could make lots of money while still being an honest broker.
But as it turns out, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) may not be different from any other large corporation that cares only about its bottom line. Like other corporate giants, Google does not have a problem with pressuring the government to pass policies that reward big business at the expense of the public.
According to news stories, Google has reached an agreement with Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) that would allow the companies to orchestrate a corporate takeover of the Internet. They want to create a tiered Internet with fast lanes for content produced by big companies and slow lanes for content produced by everyone else.
The deal would effectively spell the end of network neutrality, the principle that enabled Google to exist in the first place.
Now that Google has benefited from policies that allowed a startup to become one of the most successful companies in the country, it is now seeking to protect its online dominance by shutting the door on the open Internet to prevent competition and to maximize profits.
The irony is that, while Google is colluding with Verizon on a deal that would allow for corporate censorship on the Internet, it is also working the State Department to pressure foreign countries to open up their markets to prevent government censorship abroad.
What makes this deal so problematic is that a federal court ruled in April that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not have the authority to regulate the broadband industry. The decision threw out the legal framework adopted by the Bush administration to deregulate the broadband industry, a framework that has resulted in a broadband market dominated by companies like Verizon, Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T).
At this moment, the FCC does not have the authority to prevent companies like Verizon from engaging in online corporate censorship by blocking or discriminating against certain content online. The FCC, however, can reestablish its authority to reregulate the broadband industry and protect the public from discriminatory business practices.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has faced relentless pressure from the phone and cable companies to stop the FCC from moving forward. Instead of standing up for the public, his office has held closed-door meetings with Google, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, allowing these companies the opportunity to write their own rules that would restrict our free speech rights online.
The chairman announced last week that his office will end the backroom negotiations. But no matter how the chairman tries to put a positive spin on what went on at these meetings, we all know nothing good comes from federal agencies allowing themselves to be captured by industry.
If we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the open Internet as we know it, Chairman Genachowski wouldn’t be the only one who deserves blame.
While the news media have been obsessed by the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, one story they have missed is how corporate campaign contributions have united both Democrats and Republicans to work together to kill an open Internet. Close to 80 Democrats have formed an alliance with House Republicans to kill net neutrality. They have written to the FCC, urging the Commission not to move forward with protecting an open Internet.
Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), who has led the effort among Democrats in the House to undermine the FCC, and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) just introduced bipartisan legislation that would prevent the commission from acting to protect the public.
President Obama campaigned on a promise to take a “back seat to no one” in his support of network neutrality, a position he restated earlier this year. There’s worry the White House now might retreat from that position since it wants the phone and cable companies to continue writing checks to Democrats during this midterm election.
So while many Americans were angered last week by the actions of a company that tried to sell the public that it was honest about its “Don’t Be Evil” corporate philosophy, many are also losing confidence in the promises made by the FCC chairman and President Obama to protect an open Internet by passing strong net neutrality rules that would prevent discrimination online.
Don’t Be Evil? Change We Can Believe In?
Actions still speak louder than words.
— Joseph Torres is the Senior Advisor, Government and External Affairs, for Free Press.
Content providers reasonably worry that there is traffic that will not get through because of congestion. They want to be able to sell next-gen services that require SLAs, but can't because torrents can eat all the bandwidth, and they are not supposed to be able to throttle it!
Maybe it's possible to have guaranteed quality streaming video and still keep net neutrality; Tiering would need to be regulated to items that have demonstrable need for real time traffic.
Then we can have consumers pay different amounts for real time versus regular traffic, and get rid of the questions surrounding censorship! This would need to be done as a discount on non-real time traffic, not a premium charge for real time, but people already pay extra for faster service, this would just be a continuation of that.
It's interesting that Google and Verizon's agreement, announced today, put an abrupt, bitter end to talks the FCC was conducting with big carriers. Coincidence? Or was Google throwing its weight around?
To do no evil is naturally a great way to begin a company. It's surely a catchy phrase that consumers would love.
But give anyone the opportunity to makes lots of money, and greed sets in. After all, greed is one of the deadly seven sins for a good reason. We all are sucked in by greed, and Google is no exception.
Of course, Google I'm sure will insist until the end of time that they are still doing good, and when caught in a situation where the contrary seems to be true, will certainly come up with excuses why they were forced to do x or y.
The Verizon agreement is surely one of those time where Google surely has a good "excuse'' for it's actions.
Actions do speak better than words however. But in the final analysis Google now has the "gold'' and can write it's own golden rules now.
I find this subject to be one of the most important of this decade. It seems like it will define our existence and we have no say.
I talk to providers all the time and they say the system as is can't be maintained. They also say they need the tiered system to provide enough capital to create new infrastructure.
My question is where does that argument really stand in the overall scheme of things.
Yes, agreed that this is confusing. I am hearing this the way you are, MBC.
I know there are two sides to this, with those in favor saying that Google/Verizon and other providers will boost innovation with new privileged access services. On the other hand, Joseph Torres, the author of this blog, has some good points, too.
I am also kind of gobsmacked by the idea that wireless isn't subject to Net Neutrality rules.
[W]e want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation. Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services (such as Verizon's FIOS TV) offered today. This means that broadband providers can work with other players to develop new services. It is too soon to predict how these new services will develop, but examples might include health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options. Our proposal also includes safeguards to ensure that such online services must be distinguishable from traditional broadband Internet access services and are not designed to circumvent the rules. The FCC would also monitor the development of these services to make sure they don’t interfere with the continued development of Internet access services.
So. It sounds like they're saying that they plan to respect net neutrality...and yet, they are paving the way for what could be a system of privileged net usage that falls into a special separate category.
They go on to say:
[W]e both recognize that wireless broadband is different from the traditional wireline world, in part because the mobile marketplace is more competitive and changing rapidly. In recognition of the still-nascent nature of the wireless broadband marketplace, under this proposal we would not now apply most of the wireline principles to wireless, except for the transparency requirement.
In other words, net neutrality may not apply to wireless.
Not loving this. Wish they would address the issue more directly...
Well, it seems that Google is backpeddling, denying the NY Times story. And a NY Times op-ed contributor says the deal is more about server logistics than about quality of service price differences.
Who's right? I think in this case, smoke means fire. Google and Verizon are up to something ambiguous enough to be mistaken for a ding on Net Neutrality. Call me jaded, but I think it would be in character for Google to just let the story hang out there awhile and see how everyone reacts before making final decisions.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
Social media has been with us for a decade -- but employer policies and the law are anything but firm about the most appropriate usage of this powerful tool.
Businesses often struggle to decide which domain to use. When it comes to purchasing a domain name, you have plenty of extensions to choose from, ranging from .com and .net, to .me, and even .mobi. But which one should you pick?
I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
Email This
