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Google to Create a Private Internet Alternative?
dbucowboy writes "Times Online UK reports that Google is working on a project to create its own global internet protocol network, a private alternative to the internet controlled by the search giant, according to sources who are in commercial negotiation with the company. Should Google successfully launch an alternative internet, it is theoretically possible for them to block out competitor websites and only allow users to access websites that have paid Google to be shown to their users." We discussed this topic during summer last year.
I almost can't wait for Google's facade of goodness to slip. They're just like any other large company who are more concerned about their stock price and making money - than about taking care of their end-users. For example, they still don't have an email service that isn't plastered with advertising (even for a small fee) - which ought to be a clue that they're an advertising company first, functionality is secondary. If Google went dark tomorrow the extent would be to click Firefox over to using Teoma or Yahoo as the default search engine. I'd barely notice. As reluctant I am to admit it, Yahoo is still the single most important suite of web services to me, and I'd be lost without it (if I was stranded on a desert island and could only pick one website to bring with me, Yahoo would be it). (And now that I think about it, I wonder how many of these "Google is doing X" posts are purely to try and keep their stock price artificially inflated.)
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
Oh great, here's another way us geeks can be left out of the social circle, and in our own backyard.
-THE END-
Credible,
Sources report Google is starting it's own religion that will effectively replace all of the other religions in the world. Thus saving the world from itself.
And while they are at it reports are that each new coco-crisp cereal grain will contain a Google branded RFID device which will bring immediate live streaming video to the small intestines of those who eat it.
Brought to you by Google Rumor Central
Caution: Contents under pressure
"...it is theoretically possible for them to block out competitor websites and only allow users to access websites that have paid Google to be shown to their users." I don't see why this matters, or why it's worded how it is (seemingly to be scary or something). No one is going to force you to join this new protocol for their Internet, and if they develop it, what they do with it is their choice. I don't understand the seeming "concern" in the topic description.
Every day is another "Google planning launch it's own...."
They'll decline, and state that the new protocol is for internal use only, much like their OS
Does Google have a secret controlled gossip leakage department staffed with PhDs? ;)
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Google plans to offer free universal wifi. Al Gore plans to help create the next internet, and bring internet TV to the masses with current TV. Apple plans to offer Itunes over the new internet, through Googles new internet based linux operating system. Now all we have to do is bring Sony into the fold and get some of the gaming companies involved. I look forward to the day where I can play games online through wifi from anywhere. Here are some URLs to back up my statements. Al Gore, Google, Current TV, free wifi for all Information on who Google is hiring Google Hiring Google will hire all the best Phd students from the elite universities first. Once Google becomes so large that they run out of Phd students from elite universities, then they will begin hiring us! So I'm now in love with Google. Google if you are reading this PLEASE PLEASE give me a job, even if I'm just doing something completely stupid, I'm sure with all the millions of jobs you are creating that you'll find something for me. I hope Google continues to innovate because these innovations are creating jobs by the millions. Building a new internet would create millions of jobs for all of us. Building a new OS would create thousands of jobs. I hope Google gets involved with the gaming industry and lets me have access to a video game search engine. I hope they let us gamble and bet on games. I hope Google creates a new video game stock market where we can bet on the success or failure of games. GIMME MONEY DAMNIT!
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
Sounds like a non-virtual private network, or perhaps an intranet.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
they have the Internet on Google now?
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
And who knows? Maybe they will do it. But just because they can doesn't mean they will.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Fortunately, Google is run by people who are a little sharper than your average reporter.
Sure, Google could set up their own network, and only allow paid access to it. That is, assuming they learned nothing from Compuserve and Prodigy's attempts to do the same.
More likely, they want to build their own global back end.
We've known about this for years. We even know the name before google does. It's gonna be Sky Net.
Google to create its own Internet? Unlikely. The whole reason that Google is an important company is that it crawls through the publicly-accessible parts of the Internet in order to index its contents. If Google is to retain its premier position in the search engine market, then it will very much so remain firmly connected to the existing Internet. This is why I agree with the parent post: It is quite reasonable to believe that Google might require this bandwidth for its own purposes. There is nothing at all wrong with this. The Internet, after all, is merely a network of networks. All this means is that behind Google's accessible IP addresses lurks a mammoth network of its own.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
We all know there real secret plan is to completely buy out AOL and then time warner, and then the movie industry, and then all government anyhow. And then once everyone has downloaded google earth, a virus will be leashed upon us. Imagine the Ring and Snow Crash combined with a beautiful Siren singing to draw you to the nearest monitor, cell phone, or television. And then they can have ultimate control and we will have a perfect utopia with no evil anywhere on earth.
I'm one more google story away from having a Googasm!
If they went down this route it would be very easy to slip into being an evil monopolistic company, i don't know exactly how the rules work but if the shareholders thought that the execs were working against the interests of the company (ie. letting other people in for a low amount) then there could well be a move to oust them... Then google will be just another evil face in the crowd (assumuing they are not already)... It seems like it would just be easier to avoid this...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I, for one, can't wait. Google will tell the big telcos to go shaft themselves, will give us all 6MB internet pipes for free, simple for agreeing to use the Google Browser which contains targeted ads. Yes, I would much rather trust my Internet in the hands of Google, than Comcast who is just itching to find a way to increase my monthly cable modem fee 5x the rate of inflation, and ATT whose CEO just want everyone to pay him for everything, regardless of whether he actually deserves it.
Google changes it's name to SkyLab.
Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.
This actually sounds more like Google wanting their own private backbone then a new internet protocol.
Google needs to transfer large amounts of data through out the world and is probably looking for ways to reduce latency across the world. We have a private DS3 line from our office to our co-lo, wouldn't google want the same kind of thing at a large scale, and without having to deal with Sprint, Verison, or AT&T.
They could also use this for an VOIP solution as well, which to me is more likely. That way they can ship the voice calls on to the local phone switches throughout the country. I wouldn't be suprised to see Google offices going up all round the nation.
Going last mile and creating another internet is a huge endeavour that I don't think even google could take on. Leave that up to the telcom who are already in bed with the govt agencies required to do something like that.
What is the benefit of such a network? I've been planning to build an advertisement free network for public access and am not clear on how Google's concept improves the experience for anyone but them.
"Benjamin Cohen is a regular contributor to Times Online, writing about the internet and commerce. He is the CEO of pinknews.co.uk".
PinkNews is a GBLT site. Not that I care about the sexuality of the author, but Cohen apparently serves as 1.) a CEO of a separate media company, and 2.) one that deals with alternative lifestyles (NTTAWWT*).
My question is, does either of those two attributes make him more or less qualified to comment/report on potential Google plans, do you think?
*(Not That There's Anything Wrong...")
I hope this doesn't get too popular. I remember last year when I placed adsense on my site. After a while I got banned from adsense, and "due to security issues" I couldn't get an explanation. I can live with that - it wasn't important. But say all the "good stuff" was on GoogleNet, and you, for some reason or another, got booted off there. It would be like getting your internet connection cut, and not being able to re join. Scary thought, eh?
I see lots of obvious things to be worried about, but at the same time, I see a few things that're actually not so bad. If Google were to go this route, the only question is how far they'd go. Could this network simply be a way for Google to slap down enough bandwidth for the "Google Cube" rumors, or would it be a wider-access thing intended for Total Domination? So far, Google hasn't gone evil despite the best efforts of many to try and call them out on it, and as long as there's a way to make any money and not be evil, I'm pretty sure Google would do it long before they'd consider anything else barring a stockholder revolt. (The only thing I can forsee being a true evil-catalyst)
Now on the other hand, with the Telcos getting all bitchy about Google and others using "their pipelines", I've been wondering just how long it might take for someone to start up an "OtherNet" so to speak, restricted to non-commercial use like the old days were. It might be slow, but you -can- get an unlimited-long-distance line and slap modems together, and combine that with a meshed wireless, etc.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
... and their hired goons - let P2P be the order of the day
Google isn't a common carrier, so who cares? My old school district created it's own private network and ran fiber to each school back to the central office and IT hub. They controled traffic on their fiber and they could block what ever they wanted, because they were not a common carrier.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I seem to remember someone predicting this might happen in the future, or at least something like it.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
They forget the flip side, which is that Google could also use this separate internet as a refuge from the "tiered internet" asshattery we've been hearing about.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Wouldnt it be easier to run storys about what google isnt doing?
Guys, you have to stop believing everything about google ^^
However, industry insiders fear that the development of a network of Google Cubes powered over a Google-owned internet network will greatly increase the power that Google wields...
You mean a network of Cubes like this?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Everyone knows that google is to busy on it's hamburger cooking robot to work on this.
Hey, I've heard of that before...isn't it called AOL?
I love google though. The average googler is smarter .
-TLAY
So Al Gore serves as an unofficial advisor to Google's senior management and now they want to create their own Internet?
Maybe the stories are true?
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
If you were trying to make a Terminator reference, it's Skynet, not Skylab.
Skylab: 1970's orbiting space station:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab
Skynet: 1980's science fiction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet
Sorry, a bit off topic, I was assuming it was my ISP being slow, but I noticed google searches say they take ~0.5s now. I'm sure they used to take ~0.02s before. Is this because they have been continuously adding features (however minor some maybe)? Well, just a bit of a rant, it's just not quite as instant as it used to be. I just tried Yahoo, took 0.15s, and MSN took 0.03s, that used to be one of the advantages of google because it was faster I assumed (maybe because it didn't have some useless portal like Yahoo did then).
Google does not do evil. :)
Or they could create an internet where:
I, for one, welcome our potential Google overlords. They can't stifle competition too much, or there won't be businesses willing to populate Google's new internet. Commercial acceptance would be necessary for such a thing to even hope to supplant the Internet. The Internet won't live forever. I'd be more happy with Google engineering the replacement than with some of the other big players of our time.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Argue all you want about Google in China or anything else. Simple matter of the fact is that if the paranoid stand in the way of a company's ambitions, they risk destroying a beautiful advance in technology and living. If they don't stand in the way and Google starts censoring the competition, people will switch back to Comcast or Time Warner and Google will lose a ton of money for the costs of starting up the service but not making enough revenue off of it.
This reminds me of the paranoid trying to stop the government from putting Fluoride in the water supply. Can't they spend their time in a more productive way than fighting progress?
Google announces plans to colonize mars with human clone army.
nothing
Now I'll get to hear something other than " The Internet is broken"
Brought to you by Google Rumor Central
Isn't Google Rumor Central still a beta?
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
It's incredible how people are putting a bad spin on anything Google these days.
If Google were to introduce a plan for peace in the middle east, the commentary would be
"Google only wants peace so that it could gain more political influence
to change privacy laws world-wide so that they could control all of their users information."
Did you ever think that with all this extra capital after the ipo, they have
money to spend on interesting, maybe even theoretical projects, their own version of the Bell labs,
hoping that something will stick?
FTA:
"Last month, Google placed job advertisements in America and the British national press for "Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in...identification, selection, and negotiation of dark fibre contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network"."
Google currently used dark fiber to feed their data centers back to their HQ in California. And before anyone says who is this guy; I work in their data center where they lease space; no, I don't work for Google. But I do have to trouble shoot their friggin problems.
"Dark fibre is the remnants of late 1990s internet boom where American web companies laid down fibre optic cables in preparation for high speed internet delivery."
Dark fiber wasn't laid down by web companies; it was laid down by the Bells and CLEC's. It was called deregualation and competition. Once companies could compete; they need to build their own backbone and fiber was being laid ever since. I know because I used to work for CLEC's, SBC (called currently), MCI during the Net boom.
"Late last year, Google purchased a 270,000sq ft telecom interconnection facilities in New York. It is believed that from here, Google plans to link up and power the dark fibre system and turn it into a working internet network of its own."
Yeah, they are going to build their own net. Currently Google has half of my data center and they take up 250k sq ft. So, no, it isn't a big deal; they have data centers all around the country.
""Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box" Robert Cringely wrote. "The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.""
Each data center has approx 20k worth of servers; well, at least the larger data centers. Do you realize how much space and power costs? Like I said; 20k worth of server and 250k worth of sq footage. That isn't cheap.
"Should Google successfully launch an alternative network, it is is theoretically possible for them to block out competitor websites and only allow users to access websites that have paid Google to be shown to their users."
So, now Google builds this private Internet; now they have to attract various people:
1) Dial up and broadband users
2) Companies to put up web pages.
And people apparently get paid to be high.
"it is theoretically possible for them to block out competitor websites and only allow users to access websites that have paid Google to be shown to their users."
It's also theoretically possible that they won't allow images to be displayed on their pages unless they include one or more primates and their monkey genitalia.
It is theoretically possible that a lot of things could happen. We know, if you can control something, you can create all the possibilities in the world. That doesn't mean that any selection from the infinite possibility space will actually occur.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
If Google follows the trend then their internet would be free but why would they block out other sites causing them to loose advertisement revenues???
I don't want to speculate too much on why google is doing this, but i hardly think it's for what the journalist thinks.
the internet is awesome because it is open and free. if a company tried to cut out websites, people would use the unencumbered (i.e., the current) internet. nobody would switch to googleNet.
if anything, google is creating a backup network to cut down costs, create redundancy, and increase speeds. and if they really are making a second internet, it probably won't differ much from I2, essentially a faster way for google data centers to communicate with end users of their access points.
but i re-iterate: google is not going to be filtering the internet. that would be shooting themselves in the foot.
That will be smaller than IBM's network.
But *oooooooh* if it's Google we call it a "private internet". Humph...
Google has known for a while.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Google to make alternative planet Earth?
Seriously people, the Internet is world wide, no matter how sophisticated you believe Google to be I highly doubt they are going to create their own Internet, their own OS, their own Itunes, their own government, their own worldwide banking system... Let's keep it in perspective, they are just a search company... Nothing is saying any of these moves could even work financially.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
I thought AOL tried to create their own network - and were pretty successful for a while until the content on the Internet in general got bigger than what they could create themselves. then their attempts to monopolize people's internet connection started pissing people off, and they started leaving in droves (especially after their failure to provide a stable online connection!)
So unless Google has something very different in mind...
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
Instead of another version of the internet, imagine browsing a 100% google cached version of the current one. Instead of hopping 15 nodes across the globe to get Europe's sites (for example) you just get the most recent version off google's cache. Once google cache works out some of the wrinkles (out of date sites, postback issues, etc) in its system, I would use it for almost everything.
Gmail isn't "plastered with ads"; I don't even notice them because they're just text. Compare that to the free Yahoo! Mail with picture adds that take up half the page. Gmail was one of the first webmail programs to make full use of AJAX, and it has a bunch of great features. So you're saying you main complaint is that they're not charging you money yet? Yeah, that makes sense.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
AOL/Compuserve/Prodigy did this years ago...
Move along, nothing to see here.
From what I know of Google, this is more likely an effort to insulate themselves from the nut bags at Qwest, SBC, etc... who are throwing around the idea of charging a premium price for high-speed packet priority over the Internet. I wouldn't worry about it. Go Google!
Finally, some real competition for AOL and PRODIGY.
I was afraid those two were going to dominate the internet forever. (snicker, snicker)
Great strategy, though. Recycle business concepts that were discredited even BEFORE the tech bubble burst. Ingenious!
But I have a good feeling about this one!!!
Comment of the year
I'm sure this'll never happen, but if it did, and they implemented their own protocols, it could be a really good thing. The protocols we use now are old and weren't designed for the types of networks and security issues we have now. TCP/IP just fell into place as the most common, even though there were better protocols out there (or so my instructors told me). A complete rewrite, considering todays types of networks and security issues would be a good thing, instead of the massive stovepiping we have now. It's be one hell of a job to do and enough tougher to actually make "catch on", though.
---John Holmes...
Considering that the Bell Operating Companies (e.g. Verizon, Bell South, SBC-->AT&T) are planning to charge tolls on each side I think having a Google provided service might act as a counterweight to all that.
The wording of the whole article is very suspect.. while China might have been stealing a cookie from the 'evil' jar, trying to segregate the internet would be establishing giant co-owned 'evil' factory on a Seattle campus.
Unlikely, at best.
..don't panic
This makes no sense. They can remember a story they posted 6 months ago, but can't remember what they posted within a few hours so not to dupe stories multiple times in a day.
In other news, my company has had the same thing for years... we call it a corporate intranet, though. I guess it would be more exciting if we changed the name. Perhaps a "worldwide packet-switching network based on industry standard hardware and protocols!"
Perhaps if they could get people to sign up for something like this, they could scrutinize every move made online, and use you as their very own lab rat?
Credible sources report that Google is currently constructing a prototype Chuck Norris/Vin Diesel hybrid. The hybrid would be almost as powerful as Google itself.
"They have the internet on computers now?"
fak3r.com
The entire "News" article is a combination of every major Google rumor in the last 6 months, most of the information coming from PURE SPECULATION.
From the article: It was also reported in November that Google was buying shipping containers and building data centres within them, possibly with the aim of using them at significant nodes within the worldwide cable network. (The link was in the article)
It was not reported, it was speculated. It has only been speculated, ever, about anything like this, and until Google actually says something about it themselves, with a human's name (none of this "Undisclosed source" crap), the article better have "Speculation (Everyone elses)" in the first line, it shouldn't be considered as valid as this article claims to be. Maybe if you renamed it "Google rumors for Dummies".
This is being built to carry their own traffic and VOIP. They have been buying up fiber all over the place. Going ABOVE and beyond the NET. They are building a network that they control to transport for their own use to move data around, not to create an alterative to the internet.
In a stunning counter-move, Yahoo and Microsoft seek joint ownership of Caterpillar Inc., the largest supplier of backhoes worldwide. Analysts estimate Google's fiber-optic lines could see as little as 9.99999% uptime.
Rapture!
I heard that they were working to have the laws of physics amended to allow their own brand new dimensions. Enough of this highly restrictive existence in 11 dimensions - prepare for the dawn of the googol-dimensional Googleverse! Click here to enter next dimension!
What's really amusing is the fact that took several of those false rumors and made another rumor from them.
Anyone else think they are pre-staging themselves for Internet 2?
.com/.net/.org fiasco, more backbones, etc.
May as well get started early and correct a lot of the current problems before the ball gets rolling.
Like the DNS
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
More fear, uncertainty and doubt ... story at 6.
So what if Google creates a "private" network? How is this different from Comcast's private network, Verizon's private network, etc.? The Internet is nothing but a network of networks. Maybe Google wants to control its own network traffic rather than buying bandwidth from someone else. How does this lead to all these crazy arguments about "world domination" and "Google locking out traffic from other search engines"?
Penny - plain text accounting
I am shocked and apalled that a corporation like Google would attempt to make money. I mean they did say their motto was not to be evil but if they try to make money they obvioulsy lied. We all know anyone that tries to make a buck is evil. Look at the catholic church they make tons and ask for it regularly, they must be the pinnacle of evil. I mean if everyone tried to make money what kind of world would we live in? So sad that Google is evil after all.
WTF?
To get on the internet now i need to pay 15 dollars a year. Google caches most pages on the internet as it is so i can see them saying pay us 30 dollars a year and we will register your address and give you space to place it on the internet. then the browser companies will give them the ghttp://www.website.com/
Google is working on a project to create its own global internet protocol network
In Soviet Russia the global internet protocol network (sic) creates Google.
Oh, wait...
Deja' vu all over again.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Google is not turning itself into a new version of AOL or Compuserve. Google is, however, quietly building out its own network infrastructure. Right now anyone who wants to can do BGP peering with Google at any NAP it happens to have built out to. What does this buy them?
Let's say that I'm a mid size ISP (I happen to work for one so this is a first hand account) and I peer with Google at a regional NAP. What happens then? Any traffic between my network and Google's network will cross that peering point. As a result, I don't have to pay one of my upstream ISP's for bandwidth to Google. Google, in turn, doesn't have to pay their upstream ISP's for bandwidth to my customers. Everyone wins (except for the upstream ISP's of course).
Any large network operator is already doing this kind of thing on a large scale. Google is already doing this. The reason they bought all of that dark fiber is so they can do it without having to rent a bunch of OC-48's from the phone company in order to make it happen. There is no secret, so stop trying to figure it all out.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Is google the walmart of the internet?!
As much as I love polishing my tin foil hat and showing it off with the rest of the crowd here... all this really could mean is that Google is going to start competing with large network carriers like SBC or Time Warner. They will provide internet connectivity, TV, phone, whatever... nationwide.
I'm not so sure Google is buying dark fibre, to necessarily create their own internet, with the sole intent to only allow Google customers traffic.
Think of the other news out there related to telecom and you'll come across, Verizon setting aside large amounts of bandwidth on their network to their new IPTV offering. Leaving the rest of the bandwidth to be shared by the rest of the internet, including other IPTV providers.
Telecom, especially those that own the pipes or wires, are looking for service related subscription models. Currently, you pay a flat monthly fee, no matter how much you upload, download. In the future, you will pay for the internet as you use it. If you download a lot of music, video's or song, you will not only have to pay for the video or song, but the bandwidth necessary to download it.
So, it makes sense for a business to provide a contingency plan, especially if someone else controls the pipes and wires. It also provides users with an alternative.
So far so good, I wouldn't call Google evil yet, but I'm almost there. The grid computers and the Google box, does provide some people the ability to surf the web possibly for a lower cost in the future. It is expensive to most to purchase a computer and internet connection. Google may have the potential to bring that cost down, more than anyone. So with that, you know that the Google box will track your internet usage and provide you with some search related advertising. They can effectively do this much better than anyone, especially if they own the box and grid comps. However, that image still sticks with Google's main line of business, search related advertising.
So when do we call Google evil? I'd call them evil once they start charging internet websites like espn.com to appear on the new Google network. That's building a new business model around the network, with monopolistic characteristics, the same as verizon.
A lot of things need to fall in place for Verizon and Google to be evil and mainly they fight against each other to pass legislation that will help their cause. Both arguments have valid points, and it is the legislation written and how it is upheld, which will determine the future.
We all ready know Google is planning to provide free WIFI all over. To do that they are creating a backbone. Yes for free you know get a slow connection. But you can pay for upgrades.
Where is my free Telco access or Free cable access? Want to bet you get more for less from Google?
Is free TV Evil? Sure I don't like commercials, but we except that if we want to watch.
three cheers for Google.
Wow.
...according to sources who... ....
....industry insiders fear that...
..it is is theoretically possible for them to....
It is believed that from here, Google plans to link up...
It was also reported in November that Google was...
Google has long been rumoured to be
The technology industry has also been alive with talk that Google...
Should Google successfully launch....
Holy crap. That was amazing -- this article took no less than three unsubstantiated rumors, at least two lines of speculation, two "insiders" and combined them to be a story! Now that's journalism!
The idea of an alternate network raised by Google, although not a new idea, makes me wonder about the recent views Google has made public against the notion of the UN taking control of the Internet. Does that action effect the new Google network or is it rather Google just ironically saying they don't care?
"So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
i read the article, its all speculation (yet again)
All they are trying to do is stick it to BellSouth. BellSouth wants to charge to deliver content across their network... Google says no thanks we'll build our own.
Actually, the ability to create an alternate internet is something i was thinking about several years ago, all it involved was going into netscape and setting your proxy settings to use a special server to act as your name server, all google would have to do is modify the google toolbar to modify the browser to use googles nameserver
actually it would be a simple matter
i don't know what would. Good riddance google.
Sure google could produce an alternative IP to run data over but.
ISP's and backbone hardware providers and governments (like China) could just block it. Also governments like the US are not about to be locked out of monitoring the net by a private company.
So there is a big difference between making a protocol and getting everyone to use it. Esperanto anyone ?
Google-Net verses Verizon-Net. Looks like I just subscribe to both because each is going to give me what the other one doesn't.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Or instead of nephariously trying to create a tiered controller internet, they might be trying to have some muscle to back against the current internet-pipe-giants who keep spinning their mouths off about doing just such. That might fit with Google's recent press & hubub about telling the we-want-to-rape-your-netizen-rights companies to shove off, ya think?
Perhaps google might use all this dark fiber its been buying (because its almost literally too cheap not to after all the crap we put in) to create indeed a private internet, but a private internet immune to the bullshit of the dumb-ass know-nothing dirt-eating baby-killing devil-worshipping feces-tossing telco's. If anyone, google as a company understands the value of the network as a dumb pipe. If anyone, Page&Brin have the wherewithal to go crusading for that. Its not a bad place in the history books. "I formed a massive fucking company" v. "I singlehandedly protected an entirely new form of of democratic adhocracy and free exchange from being anally raped by big buisness!"
Look, I loved beating down on Google when Google Chat wasnt federating. Nice big technical slipup. But the google bashing has gone a little far. They got the bad press for BushCo's wiretapping, when they were one of the two to deny the information. They're getting this bad press for the China incident, but its the chinese. You cant tell them no, we're not going to censor information. They're a totalitarian state, I dont care how much fiber google owns, they shoot people for that over there.
Give em a chance, Google is still immensely young. Think before you criticize.
Myren
"The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid." ...they could just be creating "a giant processing and storage grid" that will not be hindered by any other traffic and will not necessarily have anything whatsoever to do with the search engine and more to do with making a distributed supercomputer that will make Blue Gene look like a TRS/80. The biggest one has 131,072 processors. Consider that you could conceivably stuff 5000 processors in each of those shipping containers (assuming damn near cryogenic cooling), it would only take 40 of them to best the biggest BlueGene installation by 50% in terms of processors. Now, imagine they drop a few thousand of them down, all connected by private, dedicated fiber and rollout a 20-million CPU grid.
Hello, SkyNet...
I bet that some of the facts are accurate, but the interpretation is informed more by the writer's deisre to create a "good story" that fits a well established pattern, rather than any informed analysis.
Google may well be building a global network. They may well be planning on opening it to consumers and they are no doubt doing it to serve their business interests. That doesn't mean they have to lock out their "competitors" for such an investment to be worthwhile.
A huge reason for them to make that kind of investment is so they have a lever against network providers (like AT&T) who think they deserve some of Google's revenue. They don't even necessarily have to do a complete build out, they just need the ability to reach a significant number of AT&Ts subscribers and be able to make a creditable threat they can extend their reach in the future and old Ed Whitacre is likely to change his tune. Google's ace in the hole is that they can subsidize access with ad revenues, which has got to scare the shit out of a telco guy even more than the idea of free long distance.
This is exactly my thought. With SBC threatening to charge Google for access to customers - while also charging customers for access to the net and therefor Google, this is exactly the kind of thing that Google needs to be doing to protect themeself.
So should we. Screw the telco - community networks of wireless boxes that guarantee end to end unfettered service I believe is the way to go. American's are too passive in their willingness to pay monthly *service* fees on things like cable, telephone, cell, virus protection, fire walling, financial software, etc....
We've got the power - or you can get it easily for $25 (a simple WAP) - why aren't we building connections that don't touch the telcos network?
-CF
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P143257.asp they used to make 45k+stocks, which is a moderate salary. BUT, Brin, for example, made 1.45 BILLION (with a B) selling stock since the beginning of 2005.
[...]it is theoretically possible for them to block out competitor websites and only allow users to access websites that have paid Google to be shown to their users.
It's also theoretically possible that Google will create a giant factory outside of Copenhagen, dedicated to producing black and white kittens. Theoretically, twice a year, employees of Google would load the kittens on a large theoretical plane and drop the kittens into Mount Vesuvius. Again, this is theoretically possible.
Great bit of speculation, that.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
after all, "do no evil". Would not EVERYONE consider that evil?
hmmmm?
Wake me up when you ASK them something and they answer.
Endless specualtion =! news (not even for nerds). meh.
An intranet? Bah...Tinker-toys!
[sarcasm] Hey, let's start a proprietary subscription based service where people can connect and see controlled content. We'll call it "Q-Link" or maybe "America-On-Line".[/sarcasm]
Well, since that has been done before, more likely I think were looking at interactive TV delivered through fiber-optic (as the article mentioned the "Google Cube"). Just think of tailored commercials for each individual user determined by a mixture of your subscription data (age, address, credit score), your past buying habits, and past viewing habits, and your surfing habits. Or think about commercials where your remote has a "buy now" button for instant targeted impulse buying (hey you were surfing for 'Perl Jam', now see several commercials about their CD Box set). The Data-Center-in-a-Box will be the local processing/routing node that determines which commercial the individual local viewers in its assigned sub-net get to see.
Think about a combination of cookies on steroids (actually they don't need a cookie, just your Google Cube MAC address) and a hugh highly indexed data-warehouse of individual past behavior that should make any privacy advocate cringe. I think Google's ability to collect, sort, index, retain, and retreive information about individuals will make the NSA look like third-rate amateurs. People get exercised about the NSA, but the Government is (mostly) constrained by law and periodic elections. Google (as a borderless international corporation) will not be restained by anything. My own personal alarmist, chicken-little-the-sky-is-falling prediction, Google enters into an information sharing agreement with VISA and DISCOVER, so they can track your off-line buying habits just as efficiently as your on-line habits.
to that link that says click here to get the plugin.
Then again it might all be just a way for them to tie all their disparate data centers (they have them all over the world) more reliably
will they bring fiber to my house!?
MORTAR COMBAT!
Be Evil
I remember the last time some company tried that, when it was called AOL. Or was it MSN? Or maybe CompuServe.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Huh? Google wants to create a private internet that they control, and an alternative to the internet which they control?
Oh yeah, they don't control the public internet.. someone just dropped a critical comma. Hope nobody else was confused at first.
... if this indeed their plan, appears to have really been:
I'd hope that their stock price would drop like a stone the millisecond this plan would go into effect. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not down only on Google should something like this come to pass. Any attempt by SBC or any of the other big telecomms to lock out competitors' traffic would deserve a big drop in stock price as well.
Think with your brain for a moment. How many sites like Slashdot with millions of viewers own Google stock? Hundreds of them.
Slashdot is not going to go against Google, most people on Slashdot will not go against Google. Google will make Slashdot into a billion dollar company if Google gets it's way, and hell, I don't blame any blog site or website for siding with Google when Google pays people and makes people fortunes in advertising revenue, stock, and who knows what else goes on behind the scenes.
I don't think they would block out websites that haven't paid - but I think
- this might FINALLY lead to a well organized internet
- which means you could find the information you're searching for much faster (opposite to todays mess where information becomes harder and harder to find)
- bad stuff like child porn or nazi content might become impossible to spread
- hell, even trojans, exploits, viruses and worms might disappear
- spam might be defeated
I sure hope they can achieve this!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Look, if the religion is profitable, people will support it.
People support profits. If by worshipping Google, money will rain down from the sky, well then we all will worship Google.
because we who set up blogs like Slashdot must pay Google, along with everyone else, to advertise ourselves.
Google simply organizes the worlds information so people can get from point A to point B. Google is like a map, they don't control the market they just map it out and make everyone pay for the map, then they give money back through stock and free services which save us money and make access cheaper. Brilliant plan really. You are free to go anywhere you want as long as you use their map, and you are free to do business anywhere in the Google universe as long as you use GoogleWallet, and you use their systems. Google is inventing Capitalism 2.0
In 1990, I was a programmer at Bell Canada headquarters in Montreal. Our cubes were next to those of a business group managing a new graphical dialup service called Alex, based on Telidon tech (look it up). I went up to them and said, hey, I have a second line in my apartment for modem work, I'll be a tester etc.
Then I heard their business plan. They were going to give 3 minutes of access free, then $0.50 per minute to access things like loto results, horoscopes, sports scores etc. I told them they were nuts, that they had to figure out how to make money on like $20 a month or whatever. But these were LD guys, used to making money by the minute. Their cubes were taken away about 6 months later after upper management pulled the plug.
I think that LD guys have moved from the phone companies to the Internet companies, or the phone companies are now Internet companies, and the LD guys just don't know how to think the Internet way. They will be wiped out. Besides, there are so many private-label DSL companies that anyone pulling a tiered-pricing scheme would simply be viewed as having a defective product.
Sure, it's not here today, but tomorrow! Perhaps...
I think that this is a good thing given where the telcos are going with the paid internet of choice (theirs). Which side would you rather be on? Google's or SBC's?
It gets strange when you ask about Yahoo, but perhaps these companies can work together to create another internet. What version would this one? 2.5 or 0.5?
People are confused into thinking Google is a traditional business. Google's invention is going to be as important as the invention of capitalism. Google does for information what capitalism did for trade.
Google is capitalism 2.0, and this means completely new industries worth billions or trillions of dollars will be based off Google. Google is so important for the future of capitalism that many people are fans of Google simply because their business depends on Googles success, and the success of capitalism 2.0
Capitalism 2.0 is peer to peer, Capitalism 1.0 was client server.
This goes back to the open source debate, by making the software open source, it broke us out of the dot com crash. By moving to capitalism 2.0 it will bring trillions of dollars into the industry, and this site will be a billion dollar business when billions of viewers are going to slashdot, or even hundreds of millions. Slashdot could literally create a new industry around this site, but this can only happen if Google exists to allow people to find this site. This can only happen when the information is organized enough, and access is cheap enough for it to happen.
Because trillions of dollars are at stake, this is not going to be something that is easily solved. How do you convince Slashdotters to go against their cash cow? How do you convince Richard Stallman to go against Linux? How do you convince Microsoft to give up Microsoft Word?
It's impossible to convince these big companies to ever give up their future plans to make trillions of dollars, too much money is at stake. The consumers will be given stock and herded with incentives. In the end, this new internet war, or whatever you can call this situation, will be good for the economy. Everyone benefits from conflicts like this because the Telecoms and Internet companies will be investing billions in the USA to pay lobbyists, to give stock to blogs, or whatever other methods they choose to use to get their way. This creates jobs. When Google or the Telecoms decide to actually create their new internets, this will create millions of jobs.
But it only would take one rogue router/DNS in the system to blow it all to hell.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
but the Chuck Norris half of the hybrid killed the Vin Diesel half just by looking ugly towards it, and all we got was one more Chuck Norris clone.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Oh wait. Nevermind. So Google's going to become an online service now?
The moment the arpanet backbone was commercialized we ran the risk of filtration of access.
Personally I think it would be suicide to not maintain your network as a universal interconnection point - since the value of any intranet increases with the increase in the number of nodes (Metcalf's Law). As mentioned perviously, AOL is a prime example of how its percieved value was lower than their competitors - and it ended up having to open up its network.
The folks at Google are smart. I don't see them making the same mistakes.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
All this discussion of such things has my brain cooking.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
I suppose this is their method of killing two birds with one stone. Eliminate the threat of a tiered internet and replace the American telecom oligopoly with a shiny new Google monopoly. Brilliant. (Though I'd be much fonder of an effort to create a nation-wide mesh network, under no one party's control...)
I'm just wondering how they're going to pull this off if they're still hemmorhaging money from their little P.R. up-fuck in regards to China. What were their losses up to in stocks, 13 billion? That's... a lot of money. Sure, they have plenty more, but good lord.
I've not seen this anywhere else, but I have a theory. I've heard that Google has set thing up to host images for free. It would be easy with these new facilities mentioned in the article, that they could then offer web hosting for free (or almost nothing, whatever). But with one catch:
As more and more people take advantage of their hosting, the less content that Yahoo and MSN can access, so the more relevant Google's search is, so more people use Google search, so they have more money from their ad income to go and provide free hosting... lather, rinse, repeat.
Then, add in all this dark fiber to interconnect their webhosting sites and they can provide the best access to information. Will they eventually BECOME the internet? I doubt it, but they sure could make buckets of money as this system develops.
I agree.
I think of all the threats the internet faces, Google starting it's own very small and discrete mini internet isn't one of them.
If anything, I'll bet Googles "internet" will end up like the insular enclosed system that Prodigy used to use 1988-1994.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
one day in the future, all us older folks who these flashy and distracting ads bug the most will get too old to play computer any more and eventually pass in this life. the younger generations who have been living in this media-crazy world who are not phased by flashing lights and distracting ads will not be hash ing through such arguments. it's evolution. it's the same with a lot of television today. the editing is just too fast and flashy for our older generations to consume. kids/youth/young adults/tail-end gen x'rs just don't have the same problem.
who will control the new Global Goonet's root servers? Ahem.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Why? Very simple. Because:
d =14110356d =14110356
"Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible."
by http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169294&ci
seen on http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169294&ci
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Wasn't this called Prodigy a dozen years back? Or maybe it was AOL? Or Genie? Anyone remember why those services were surpassed by adoption of the "raw" internet as somehow more desirable than these tailored sandbox-safe services? When the "raw" internet became usable to the average person?
Unless google has some compelling service that can't be had on the internet, any restrictive service won't work. And if they do put up a compelling service, it's only a matter of time before the geek/guru/wizard types among us put those service onto the internet for everyone to use.
Marketing question - would anyone pay for fiber to their home at ANY price point, if the only content was the modern equivalent of mid-90's AOL specific services? I wouldn't...
Gates Foundation is about 28 billion, over five years. Now we look at the profits of MS:
36.84BN in 2004 (and I'm assuming the same for 2000/1/2/3). Same source says 39.79BN for 2005.
I make this approximately a little less than 224BN for the last five years.
Bottom line: Microsoft gave 12.5% of profits to the Gates Foundation. That's a lot, but they could have given a lot more.
Also, another point of interest: what about bundling IE with Windows? Or the forced upgrade cycles? Or .doc format keeping us locked into Microsoft Word?
MS stays #1 on my evil list despite what you say.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
And I got labeled a moron for calling this in another slashdot discussion a while back about Google buying up dark fiber. Why in the hell else would you be buying up all that fiber, and you're a HUGE internet company? CREATE YOUR OWN INTERNET, OF COURSE!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Google can do a better job of censoring their private network than China has been able to do so far. The Chinese will be very thankful! :-)
:-)
But seriously. Everything I've read says the network will be ad based or subscriber based. If you can't get to what you want, don't buy ads or pay them subscription money. If Google builds their own net it won't be the only game in town. Well unless the Chinese hire them to run their internet for them.
Well, if Cringley is right (as reported on /. here)
my guess that this network is the backbone for Google's distributed and portable datacenter. If there's 3.5TB of storage in each, that's a lot of data that would need accessed.
Google has to fight against the incumbents who want to charge money for nothing other than padding their profits, the pigopolists that want a monopoly or at the miniumum a severely restricted commercial only internet, basically an attempt to convert todays internet into yesterdays TV network system (no search engines required as there would be no real choices).
So fo google, the more companies that are looking for more customers the more money they make. Google thrives on anti-monopoly practices. It only really has to stick to the "no evil" approach because M$N will always abandon it for a quick buck (so they will keeo going up and down i.e. pretend to be good and get customers, exploit customers for maximum profit, lose customers, repeat, oh yes after the first half dozen times dont expect it to work any more).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I know this is old news now but I would like to say that Google is not going to setup it's own internet. It is probaly for the Google Web Accelerator. And to speed up any other network operations.
Actually, if this rumor has any substance at all, then I'd say it's much more likely to be a tor-like or freenet-like anonymity network. Google, especially with Google Update, would stand a good chance of making that widely successful, and it could tie in nicely with their other philosophies and issues. Google China would become less of an issue then, for instance.