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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.
Google bought some bandwidth to be able to send site content to users. Those users bought some bandwidth to be able to receive it. What's the problem?
Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes'
And I 'dumb pipe' is all I ever expected from my ISP, and it is what I'm paying for! If they want Google to pay for delivering the content, I will get access for free, right? Bullshit.
Yes, those poor telecoms that gives their users free access to the internet must be paid back by Google. How does Google dares to provide content and expect the charity telecoms to be the only ones that pay for those bills. I'm outraged.
Wait a minute....
Then why my telecom is sending me a monthly fee?
Dear telecomns, in case you have not noticed: you are 'dumb pipes' and always were. Get over it, stop whining and start providing the bandwidth you advertise.
Google should just tell those telecom companies to block YouTube from their networks if they think it's taking up too much bandwidth. Let's see who suffers.
The European Telecom operators should know that we, Internet subscribers, pay for our connection top Euros to be able to access sites like Google, Gmail or Youtube. Google is offering most of their services for free to their users and we, as clients of the Telecom companies, are already paying.
At least, Spain's Telefonica CEO demonstates he's just a parasite that doesn't know about what he's talking except getting more money from Google and their clients. If you understand the Spanish talked by a almost drunk man, you'll get the point watching this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVADWAxOZtg
If we're not going to buy into net neutrality, why does it follow that google should pay the telecoms? Why shouldn't they pay google for enhancing their service?
If google stopped serving pages to people connecting through specific ISPs, those ISPs would go under. Who here wouldn't change their provider if they couldn't get google? You wouldn't really be on the net without google.
Like, the customers? If I'm paying for 10GB of data at 10Mbps each month, and the ISP is oversubscribed to uselessness, that's not Google's vault, that's the ISP's false advertising at work.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Note to telecoms: You were, are, and always will be, dumb pipes. Stop complaining, it used to be that you guys made respectable money selling dumb pipes to people who needed them. Of course, that was back before you became a bunch of bloated gasbags intent on squeezing every last packet out of the internet.
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
Dear Mr. NuttyProf,
we have noticed you've been having a personal web site since 1993. With the statistics you graciously provide publicly we gather, that your site gets accessed several dozen times per month. Since we provide the channels bringing your content to our customers, we'd like to request you to review the attached contract and initiate a monthly fee of $14.95 in order for us to continue to serve your needs in the high quality you have come to expect of us....
Sincerely,
AnyOfTheLargeISPs
It's not like these telecoms customers are paying them for access to the Internet, so they need to get their revenue from somewhere. Oh, wait...
This is not cable TV, you can't "unbundle premium channels", stop clinging to your ancient business models and come up with a good one.
What I don't think they've fully thought out is the end-game. Possible options:
1) Google pays them. Google then starts getting invoices from every ISP around, from the little mom-and-pops to the tier-1s demanding a cut of the pie.
2) Google cuts them off so that the above doesn't happen. These ISPs customers start screaming "Why am I paying you for access to the Internet, when you aren't providing it?" and they start switching to other providers that aren't pulling this.
Come on, telcoms! You're already charging users for access to the Internet, and the businesses they visit for access to the Internet. How many more times do you need to get paid?
They seem to think they're in a position of power because they control the "eyeballs", but those eyeballs will go to another provider if you don't provide access to the services they want.
Telefónica is like neandertal people, really. I have read some declarations from the director, and I was forced to check the date.. I was like a talk from the dictator Franco. And France Telecom is everything that is wrong with corportations plus everything that is wrong by govern owned industry.
Can these two companys die, please?
-Woof woof woof!
This is like suing a car manufacturer because somebody got run over by a car they created.
A better car analogy might be highway operators trying to charge manufacturers of SUVs as they take up more space when driven by motorists on the toll-road.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Exactly. Just as it has been "jumping down the throats" of successful European businesses for years. You say successful, I say abusive and corrupt. Go figure.
Indeed. The bit that really got me was:
Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to 'dumb pipes'
That is really all that they are, or at least should be. They are not content providers, they are merely facilitators.
which is totally what she said
All this bitching, be it in the US or the EU, is just about the telecoms wanting to double-dip. All bandwidth is paid for, one way or another. In the case of extremely large connections, like connections between Tier-1 ISPs, the cost is shared between the two ISPs. When they peer, it is an agreement where they say "You pay the costs of your equipment and lines, we'll pay the costs of ours, and we don't charge each other anything to trade data." At every level down from there, it is paid by a smaller consumer. If you are a smaller ISP, you pay the bigger ones for access to their networks. Individuals, businesses, etc then pay those ISPs for access to their network. All the bandwidth is being paid for.
They just want to double charge. They want to tell Google that they should have to pay because Google's data goes over their network.
Of course, if push came to shove, I'd bank on Google winning. Dumbass ISP X says "Ok, we are throttling Google traffic and/or blocking Youtube." Google says "Ok, we are blacklisting all your IPs and showing your users a page that explains what dicks you are and what you need to change for us to restore access." My bet? Consumers get furious at their ISP and either force a change, or simply switch to a new one.
Providing bandwidth for their users to do what they want? Is that the purpose of ISP?
Or is there any other purpose? Like laying down ground rules, like the Ten Commandments:
1. Thou Shalt Not View Video Online
2. Thou Shalt Not Use Too Much Bandwidth
3. Thou Shalt Pay Through Thy Nose
4. Thou Shalt Obey Everything
5. Thou Shalt Hath No Right
6. Thou Shalt Be Grateful
7. Thou Shalt Giveth Us All Thy Money
8. Thou Shalt Sacrifice Thy First Child For Us
9. Thou Shalt Let Us Screw You
10. Thou Shalt Not Complaint
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"Why is it surprising? The EU has been jumping down the throats of successful American businesses for years. After they got through with Microsoft, it only makes sense that they would shake down Google as their next target."
Firstly, EU != European Union government in this article, only the EU ISPs.
Secondly, you make it sound like the EU is picking American businesses on purpose.
I guess you're American and thus only hear about the US businesses fined by Neelie Kroes, but believe me, more European companies have been hit than American ones by the anti-monopoly and anti-kartel legislation.
Thirdly, the ISPs are greedy and wrong on this count. They have paying customers. Don't like it that they actually use all of the bandwidth you promised them? Tough luck, find another business model or don't promise something you can't deliver.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
A dumb pipe is precisely what you are, and should continue being.
On one hand we have content providers like Murdoch saying Google should pay them for the content Google is providing access to.
And on the other hand we have telcos saying Google should pay them because they're providing access to Google's content.
It's the fate of any success story; Google has money, they want it for themselves, and they think it's easier to get Google's than to earn their own.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Yeah, yeah, you're all saying "this is crazy, I've already paid for my bandwidth"...and you're all correct, but: /. passim : FCC in USA, filtering in Australia...)
As we've seen here recently, common sense or 'fairness' seems to have little to do with ISP regulation and/or behaviour.
(See
Here in Europe, many countries tax blank media and playback devices [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy] in order to 'compensate' artists for 'lost' revenue.
How long before Europe's telcos, (most of whom have strong lobbying power), actually get something like this either legislated, or get Google to cough up some money just by threatening to get it legislated?
They're already trying to grab some of Google's ad revenue:
"French President Nicolas Sarkozy is mulling a recommendation to impose a tax on Internet ad revenues in France. The proposal is aimed at helping the French culture industries survive the new digital age. But critics say it is absurd, unworkable and will do little more than prop up failing business models."
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,670837,00.html]
The ISPs have it all backwards, presumably with full knowledge of the real problem. The customer pays for a connection to the internet. The customer then uses it to access popular services, like Youtube or Facebook or any other of this months fad.
Many ISP has vastly oversold their capacity to their customers and engaged in price fights that has made internet access well below what they should cost. They know its going to be a cold day in hell before the customers agree on a big price hike this late in the game so they try to wring money out of the popular services the customers use their bandwidth on.
Since the ISPs sell access to the internet they have nothing, absolutely nothing they can demand from services on the internet. They made this mess by charging to little for all to much bandwidth, well, sucks to be wrong dont it?
HTTP/1.1 400
....any ISP that thinks Google isn't playing fair should just not allow connections to the Google Empire for their customers.
Then we'll see how long it takes for the free-market to self correct. I give it about 30 days, most of that time being required for the ISP to staff up their disconnections department.
Of course the argument is flawed. Google is not pushing data. Their clients want to access Google, and are paying for that.
I'd say, if Google and all the other online services didn't exist, the ISPs wouldn't exist either (why the hell would we pay them?). So I'm hoping they're told to fuck off.
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Before using that analogy remember that some toll roads already charge you more if you have a bigger vehicle and people seem to think that is ok.
- Raynet --> .
"This starts to look like a circular dependency. We might as well not charge anybody and thereby save money on accounting."
Remminds me of the story about the rich man and the poor village....A rich man walks into a hotel in a poor village where all the bussinesses are in debt. He gives the hotelier $100 for a room on the condition that if he doesn't like it he will take the money back and leave. The hotelier gives him the keys, confident the rich man will like the room he takes the $100 and pays the grocer for the food he bought on credit. The grocer takes the $100 and pays back the farmer the money he owes him, the farmer uses it to pay back the blacksmith who then goes to the hotel to pay off his debt to the hooker who in turn gives it to the hotelier for past rent. The rich man comes back dissatisfied with the room, takes the $100 and leaves the village. Nothing has changed but the village is now debt free.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
All I can say is Jackass!
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/07/business/canadian-lumber-penalized.html?pagewanted=1
Canadian Lumber penalized
http://www.google.ch/search?hl=en&ei=J0PES87yPOiXOP3XjdkP&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CAcQBSgA&q=American+steel+tariffs&spell=1
"American steel tarriffs"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2004/apr/28/brazil.usnews
"American Cotton Subsidies illegal"
My point is that America is neither better nor worse with respect to breaking the trade rules games.
But because of jackass's like you, you think that it is poor poor America that always suffers! BS!
Again I am not saying America is good, nor bad. America is dealt bad cards at times, and deals bad cards as well. So if you are going to complain please keep the argument to Google and the ISP's and not "America" and "Europe"
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
FT is owned by the Pearson Group. It is not a Murdoch paper.
Maybe their concern is that it'll become obvious to everyone that they're dumb pipes, and that they're dumb pipes whose business model, pricing infrastructure can't cope with piping all that well.
Duh. STFU and just stop peering with them if you don't want the traffic. Of course then your customers won't get anything back when they request pages from Google. Good luck with that. Maybe they'll feel better when you pass along all your network cost savings to them. Right.
Bullshit PR aside, the facts are plain: Your continuing to peer with Google is proof you believe you derive positive economic value by serving Google's content. Given this reality, maybe now you can explain carefully why Google owes you something?
And when you're done answering that question, how about this one: Why is it that with TV distribution it's the cable providers paying the content providers, not vice versa as you'd propose Google do? Why shouldn't you be owing them money, for turning your dumb pipes into something people will pay $50 a month for?
This is journalism? Does the Financial Times just run press releases now?
I have been banging on about your third point for some time. Especially where I took out an "Unlimited" bundle to only then start getting warnings about contravening "acceptable use" policies. Where were they when I signed up. On several occasions I just sent a link back to my ISP to an online dictionary definition of the word "Unlimited" and heard no more. But now it seems that the ISP want paying from both ends, I pay for my bandwidth and Google pays for me to use it??? Doesn't seem right to me.
Not really, it's more like the highway operators charging motorists tolls, and then trying to get the destination cities/towns/villages to pay as well.
I notice that all on the companies mentioned are ex-state-owned companies. Basically they're the old monopoly telecoms who got to lay the telephone lines in the past using taxpayer's money and later got privatised, keeping ownership of all that infrastructure.
Even though in most (maybe all) of the countries where those companies are based laws were passed forcing them to provide access through their lines to any company wanting to work as an ISP (a boon to competition and why Internet access is faster an cheaper in most of Europe than in the US) they are still meaningful because they own the last-mile infrastructure and get paid by ISPs that use those lines to provide Internet access.
They still retain many of the bad habits from their days as a state own monopoly (big, fat and uncompetitive) and have only remained in their positions because of the huge barriers to entry in the landline telecoms infrastructure business.
Given that I would say that these big, fat behmots are worried about high-bandwith Internet services because they have in fact not updated the infrastructure:
- Until now they were relying in advances in xDSL technology to provide ever increasing speeds on top of the existing POTS copper lines. This improving of xDSL technologies is now slowing down while at the same time government have suddenly discoverd it's fashionable to rant about the need for universal high-speed Internet access to "liberate Europe's creative energies" and "Create the jobs of the future". This means that a critical mass is building that would lower the barriers to entry (or make it a better investment) to lay fiber-to-the-home.
Once other companies have replaced enough of the installed base of last-mile POTS copper wires with fiber these guys (who never had to face any real competition in the landline telecoms business) will likelly shrink to nothingness.
This is why they're trying to hold the tide.
You're using "The EU" to refer to both the EU's competition regulators, and EU-based businesses. The former have nothing to do with the current action, and the latter are behaving as they would be expected to in an unregulated free market: petulantly and with no regard for their customers.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I think the reasoning of the ISP's is not that Google is causing their pipes to get clogged up, but that Google is succesful with their services because the ISP's are providing their customers with bandwidth. If they didn't provide the bandwidth, Google wouldn't even exist.
If they didn't provide the bandwidth, they wouldn't exist, as their customers would switch to their competitors who did provide that bandwidth.
They're trying to get a free ride off Google's success, when all they really are is "dumb pipes". Google doesn't reduce them to that, it's what they are by nature, and for some reason they desperately wish they were something else.
Why have all these criticisms of the EU been modded Troll?
Probably because there is no (-1, Factually Incorrect) moderation, for which quite a few of the anti-EU posts in this discussion would qualify.
Alternatively, (-1, Offtopic) would be more relevant in several cases, since we are talking about EU ISPs here and not European-level government.
Also, who said anything about Europeans "punishing success"? Again, this isn't the people of Europe acting, it's the ISPs. In case you hadn't noticed, almost everyone in this discussion thinks they're just making a greedy cash grab, including the commenters from Europe.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The EU ISPs aren't the first ones who suggested this.
To the ISPs who complain that Google turns you into a "dumb pipe:" Yes, that is the idea. That is the service that we, as consumers, buy from you. We would be quite happy if we could lease some relatively inexpensive, and very dumb pipe. Google doesn't pay you to ship their content, because *we pay you to allow us to fetch that content.* Last I checked, you made some decent money doing so. Stop treating our broadband connections as a revenue stream and start treating it as the service it once was.
No it's worse than that.
How it is:
User pays their ISP for their connection
Server owner pays their ISP for their connection.
How the ISP's want it:
User pays their ISP for their connection
Server owner pays their ISP for their connection.
Server owner pays every other ISP again and again and again.
They were always dumb pipes. They pretended that they had content in order to push out the small ISP's. When people learned what the Internet was about the stopped using the ISP's content. Too bad the small ISP's are no longer here to testify.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I don't agree.
First, even if there was such argument, it would be from *consumers*, not the ISPs, since it's the costumers who are paying for the bandwidth, as you rightfully said.
But unlike the ISPs, who *are* being paid for the bandwidth and now want to double charge, in the case of Google, nobody's paying for their service; ads are their only payment. What you're saying is that Google should provide those services without any kind of payment.
Personally, I prefer to watch some ads than to pay for a Google subscription.
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Google is now providing the traditional email, storage and content services that were once part of the expected role and expense of running an ISP.
Help stamp out iliturcy.