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In EU, Google Accused of YouTube "Free Ride"

An anonymous reader passes along a Financial Times piece that covers a push by EU telecoms to get Google to pay them directly — years after US ISPs began rattling that sword, to little effect thus far. "Some of Europe's leading telecoms groups are squaring up for a fight with Google over what they claim is the free ride enjoyed by the technology company's YouTube video-sharing service. Telefónica, France Telecom, and Deutsche Telekom all said Google should start paying them for carrying bandwidth-hungry content such as YouTube video over their networks.... Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes' because the internet search and advertising company pays the network operators little or nothing for carrying its content. Rick Whitt, a senior policy director at Google in Washington ... said Google was spending large amounts on its own data networks to carry its traffic to the point where it is handed over to telecoms companies round the world." Note that FT.com operates on a "first few per month free" paywall basis.

3 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Google should.. by lattyware · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    While I agree with the sentiment, 'I know i wouldn't buy an ISP for internet without youtube' is not a valid sentence. Try 'I know I wouldn't pay for an internet connection from an ISP that didn't give me access to youtube.' - You don't own the internet, the ISP or youtube, you use them.

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    -- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
  2. Re:Interesting by HungryHobo · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    where the hell did this silliness about "common carrier status" come from?

  3. Re:Interesting by KahabutDieDrake · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Where is the mod option for "delusional"?