Google Wants To Administer the First White Spaces

aabelro writes "Google proposes to the FCC to become the administrator of a White Spaces Database containing geo-location information about devices using the free channels in the radio spectrum."

Comments

Hmmmm...

[AnotherUsername]

I would much rather the FCC be the administrator of it. I know Google is the big player right now, but it is still just a corporation(especially one that profits from data mining/advertising). The government is not for profit. Google is completely for profit. The government is more likely to make access to the database free. As always, as those who know my views can guess, I trust the government more than I do corporations, and this includes corporations like Google.

Re:Hmmmm...

[LOLLinux]

An international boycott of Google could both change its plans quickly and perhaps put it out of business.

And such a thing actually happens, how often?

Re:Hmmmm...

[el_tedward]

We have much more of an ability to make change through the democratic process than we do by trying to scream at/boycott a corporation until we get what we want.

Not that most people know enough about what is going on in the world to change their vote based on something technology related like this, but that'll probably change as more old people die. We have a much better chance of getting people to go out and vote than we do with getting enough people to boycott a corporation.

Re:Hmmmm...

[MrTester]

Dont confuse the administrator of the database with the governor of the data therein. Google is just proposing to provide the technical solution, not decide the policies that get someone on the list.

And if Google gets this, the goverment will certainly write into their charter limits on what and when they can charge.

I just dont see an issue here.

Re:Hmmmm...

[Suki I]

Which other firm do you propose administer it? The government is going to hire some firm to build and administer it and will have oversight over it. Google or not.

Re:Hmmmm...

[MrNaz]

Why is government control necessarily "evil"? It's function* is to control social institutions and infrastructure that is otherwise unprofitable to run or should not be run in a for-profit manner. Furthermore, corporations come and go, as do their agendas. Would you want AT&T to be in charge of all IP addresses that were unused back in the 70s when it was the dominant player in telecommunications? In 20 years Google will (hopefully) be just another once-were-innovators.

If this same discussion were happening 10 years ago, the big name putting up their hand to administer it, and would probably have little competition, would be Microsoft. Who'd want that? Google will one day be what Microsoft is today; hated, feared and opposed by pretty much everyone, and all the Google fanboys today will claim then that they never really liked Google the way ex-MS lovers now claim they never liked MS.

Corporations should *never* be given permanent power over social infrastructure. I never understood the willingness of the US population to give fundamentally transient organizations power over social infrastructure. Imagine if SCO actually *did* have control over anything important in the Unix world?

Privatization is *not* the panacea that Americans hold it to be.

(Oh, and I know you're not saying it is, I'm agreeing with and taking further your point.)

* Current implementation of "government" is not what I'm talking about, I'm talking philosophically.

Re:Hmmmm...

[TubeSteak]

An international boycott of Google

Your solution advocates a
(*) market-based
approach to solving the Google problem.

Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work:
(*) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once

Specifically, your plan fails to account for:
(*) The enormous popularity of Google
(*) International reluctance to engage in sweeping change
(*) A lack of support from famous Musicians and Actors

and the following philosophical objection also applies:
(*) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
(*) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem

Fox, meet henhouse

[speedlaw]

I agree that the way that broadcasters have "parked" spectrum is appalling. Did you know every FM slot is "taken" even in areas where no one uses them ? I once tried to buy a radio station-it was an education. The fact is that even here in media saturated NYC there's a lot of unused RF, and at the higher UHF allocations the fact that one market might interfere with another is greatly lessened. There is no good reason why we need to regulate the way we have been. It's like making a national park with strips of industry. The real reason is that this was a great "restraint of trade" for the established propaganda providers (see "community FM radio") Still, if I were a broadcaster, I'd be very afraid. Since the Congress is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate america, google can't do a worse job than the FCC.

Conspiracy Theory...

[Thelasko]

I really like the "Google is NSA" tag. I think it's my favorite conspiracy theory yet!

Google slogan mmm

[Ractive]

Google slogan : "Don't be evil"

Google slogan in 5 years : "Don't be soooo evil"

Google slogan in 10 years : "Just don't be as evil as Satan himself"

Google slogan in 20 years : "All your arses are belong to us"

Re:Google slogan mmm

[ZarathustraDK]

Google in 50 years : "Developers, developers, developers, developers!"

Bad idea

[Rik Sweeney]

The first thing a hacker would do is use a trim() function and destroy all the data...

Ha, nice theory

[zogger]

I've been paying attention to US politics since Eisenhower/JFK transition years and I have yet to see this asshat voting out theory turn to practice. What happens is one group of asshats replaces another one. We have two groups of asshats who swap off every other election or so, but the continuation is corrupt government, whistleblowers or potential whistleblowers in government bureaucracy are always afraid of repercussions in their jobs (or worse...). Both those government hijacking groups lobby hard and perpetually to scare the population into "not wasting their vote" on any alternative to the asshat nominee, to insure only asshats get voted for. It is a remarkable effective and simple technique in keeping the asshat party, the one with two wings, in power.

So even if you decide to "run for office yourself" to help clean things up, you are lucky to make it past real local elections, county or above, you toe the asshat party line or ..nothing. You most likely won't get elected, big fat waste of time, and if you do get elected, you are in peril of either being marginalized, or heck, they off people man. The dual wing corrupt asshat "shadow government" just plain do not like honest people who aren't bribed or blackmailed off. Stuff happens to those folks, or they just get completely ignored, one or the other.

The closest we have come to breaking this power sharing corrupt criminal cartel and kleptocracy is the reform party efforts, but they scared the two wing asshat party so much that they decided that they "wouldn't allow" anything *but* asshats on the stage at the big national debates, and the asshat controlled media went along with that. Pretty much knocked the stuffing out of any third party/alternative vote efforts.

    The League of Women Voters, to their credit, dropped their sponsorship of the asshat national debates at that time. Which should have been a major clue to the electorate..but around 97% or so now have caved in and decided to "not waste their vote" and have kept electing asshat criminals right along since then. And the asshats make damn sure government is run as a for profit bribery and influence and jobs peddling organization.

Any real mavericks, perhaps with new ideas or..gasp..not corrupt, really honest people, get marginalized and demonized immediately in the controlled asshat press, labeled as "fringe", or they just get completely ignored.

So..my conclusion is..there's about no diff anymore if some corporation or alleged government runs things, the asshats are in charge in both areas, and its the same people with revolving door government to global corporation jobs, etc, where just about everything at the decision making level is done with behind the scenes payoffs and bribes, etc, and our form of government should more fairly and accurately be labeled as a Corporatocracy.

It is not as bad as it could get yet, obviously there are some other rather extreme heinously run nations that are even more despotic and corrupt, but this has been the trend and direction, heading towards that total despotism, as long as I have been paying attention.

What is sad and funny at the same time is sitting in the middle, having to shift all around all the time so as not to catch any asshat cooties, and watching both asshat extremes of the vigorous "true believers" types point fingers at each other across some fairy tale imaginary dividing line while they chant in unison "It's all your fault!! If only all of OUR asshats where in charge, things would be just so much bettah!".

Damn funny really.

What this has to do with Google and whitespaces and spectrum, etc I can't say in exact terms, but I am fairly confident to predict that in general terms, which ever policy that will go to ship the most amount of cash into the fewest amount of hands will eventually turn out to be "the" policy or regulation, etc. What asshat spokesmodel they slap in front of that will be mostly irrelevant.