Google Argues Against Net Neutrality

An anonymous reader sends this quote from an article at Wired: "In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC (PDF) that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don't give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections, and that the Google Fiber network is perfectly within its rights to prohibit customers from attaching the legal devices of their choice to its network."

Comments

Don't be evil (some of the time)

[bonch]

Google plans to offer its own business-class services on Fiber. Can't have people running their own servers as competition. This company tends to claim support for whatever is politically popular among techies and then quietly go back on it when it affects their bottom line.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[homey of my owney]

Evil isn't in the eye of the beholder... It's in the mind of Google.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[MrNaz]

So Google successfully conned the nerd herds into loving them with ostentatious nerd-friendly marketing in the late 90s and 00s, and now that they have acquired their financial and political power, the draw back the curtain to reveal Microsoft's policies on steroids.

"Somehow, 'I told you so' just doesn't say it."
- Will Smith.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[MrNaz]

The net neutrality debate is NOT about preventing abuse, as many naive people would like to believe. It is about ensuring that home users don't develop services that compete with commercial ones.

For example, Google doesn't want anyone starting up community-run OwnCloud instances reducing the attractiveness of Google's services now do they? How hard would it be to run a server to sync your contacts, files, calendar and other PIM data either yourself or with a group of friends? We're pretty much there with open source software like OwnCloud and Zimbra. THIS is what Google and other service providers don't want. They are protecting their ability to monetise you and charge you for the basic services that could be done privately, securely and effectively either yourself or by community groups.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they have to do? Show up at your door and rape your mother with a splintery broomstick before you'll concede that they may have some unfriendly tendencies?

Well, that would convince me.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I always pointed out on slashdot, just HOW MUCH trust was being put in Google, with how little understanding of their operation as a publicly traded company.

The fanbois for Google - which have a huge intersection with slashdot readership - nearly always mod-bomb these observations as flamebait or trolling. Contrariness is only rewarded when it chooses a popular target. ;-)

Google's hand-waving of good will always gets trumped by their desire to control revenue. But like a stage magician, those who want to believe continue their suspension of reality.

Google's real motivations afford them selling out customers for the value of their "private" information. You can now see, in this one, more obvious way, how principle is secondary to business and profit - through the artificial tiering of "business class" service. There is no "business class" IP.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[jeremyp]

Google's real motivations afford them selling out customers for the value of their "private" information.

Google does not sell out its customers. If, like me, you have never handed any money over to Google but you have used their apps, Search etc, you are not a customer, you are product. Google's customers are the people who advertise with them.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[Anonymous Coward]

Google does not sell out its customers

No? Hows this: We pay them (a lot) for listings on Google Base (shopping.) We take our own product photos, in our own photo lab, usually as some kind of action shot, and we copyright and watermark every one before the jpeg hits the server or is sent along to Google as the product image. Google's latest to us? We're supposed to remove all of these watermarks / sigils so Google can use OUR images to advertise OTHER company's products. We've presently got about 40,000 watermarked images. They gave us two weeks to "remove" the watermarks, as if they were stuck on with bubble gum.

I think we're going to drop Google Base, actually, over this one. It's an unreliable product that never has worked very well, and certainly no better since they started charging for it. But this last bit about making us remove our marks from our own images...

Fuck them.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[icebike]

I always pointed out on slashdot, just HOW MUCH trust was being put in Google, with how little understanding of their operation as a publicly traded company.

Oh, climb down before you hurt yourself.

We ALL know that google makes money selling your demographics in bulk and pushing ads on you.
There is no secret there. In my day job I manage google advertising for the company I work for, and we get nothing identifiable on those who click my company's ads. (Just like Google's privacy policy says).

The ads Google pushes into web pages are targeted. We all know that. If I search for Lexus dealers, Lexus ads show up on various web pages. Big deal. I can turn on ad block at any time.

There is no lack of understanding here. You made that up. We know what they do and how they do it.

I've never had any of my "private information" leaked, or sold to anyone. I've got unique searchable strings in many of my Google Docs files, emails, etc, and they don't show up on the net.

As far as this example, this so called net neutrality issue is not even what net neutrality is all about. Further, ALL broadband providers have limitations on offering services (mail, web, game, blogs) on residential connections. Comcast, Roadrunner, AT&T, all of them). There is nothing new here.

You want to provide a service, buy a business connection.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[earls]

I dunno, they're the ones that know everything about her, maybe she had it coming.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[mysidia]

People seem to forget... Google isn't your best friend, or your nice neighbor lady, or your pal at the bar. Google is a company. Companies don't exist to be nice, they exist to make money for their owners and shareholders. Now, tomorrow, and well into the future.

Exactly. Google was never acting solely on their customers' behalf. Companies act on their customers' behalf only when it benefits them.

This is why corporate lobbying should be illegal, and companies like Google (and their competitors, and large businesses in all industry) should be barred from articipating in the legislative process.

I believe my recommendation would be: as soon as the company's book value or annual costs first exceed $5 million; that company and its current executives and legal representatives (due to conflict of interest) should become ineligible to participate formally in political process or a "friend of a court" in any way.

If you as Google CEO or board member want to go write a friend of the court message -- fine, but resign your post first.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[xQx]

This is a very, very common MBA question. The reasoning goes something like: "Directors have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder returns, so to not buy labor at the cheapest rate, and to not be ruthless in your pursuit of profits is not executing your Director's duties. Discuss".

Post Enron, the answer MBA lecturers are looking for is something like:

Shareholder return is measured in more than just dollars. Multi-national organisations have great power because they can't be controlled by a single government, and as such have a responsibility to act as good global citizens. Companies and their directors are legally obliged to maximize _long term_ returns, and you are not going to get long-term returns if you don't look after your customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders. This includes ensuring their welfare so everyone can live until tomorrow and loves the company brand and has money to spend on its products.

In short: Companies need to make money, but to be a global superpower for a sustained period, you need to manage your reputation and act in a way that makes people want to work for you and buy from you in the future.

On a side note, I reject the premise of this headline. I don't think offering a nobbled residential plan that doesn't allow for you to run a server - allowing Google to drive people onto a more expensive business plan that frees you from these constraints - is an assault to net neutrality. That's akin to charging more for a static IP address. It's just segmenting your market to extract better profits.

Prioritizing YouTube over bit-torrent or Netflix would be an assault to net neutrality.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously as I have mod points. I can confirm that this is the case and a good friend of mine experienced this same problem.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[Skapare]

Stretching this to mean that you can run your own mail server ...

Not true. Net neutrality is about having absolutely zero concern about what the traffic is, aside from what the law might prohibit. What net neutrality is not about, is how much bandwidth you get to have for a price.

Buy a business connection and all these issues go away.
You also get a better upload/download ratio. Because residential is heavily favoring download speed over upload.

A "mail server" is not necessarily "business". People run personal mail servers, and web servers, and other kinds of servers. The real issue Google should be concerned about is personal, and the finite scope of that (house guests, for example) vs. commercial/business, which can, and should, be charged more for that kind of important premium service (higher bandwidth, more 9's reliability, faster repair response, etc).

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[crontabminusell]

Right now it's all just talk, so yeah... that would be a start.

As of Today; I have no Google fiber, and Google fiber is nowhere even near my state.... all of the broadband providers in may area forbid running servers without buying an uber-overpriced "business" service that increases the monthly price tag from the residential $120/month for 3 Megabit cable from Charter to a minimum of about $800/month

Where on earth do you live? Our office in the Detroit area pays about $180/mo for 100Mbit down/10Mbit up (cable modem), with a static IP, and we can run pretty much whatever we want on it (I say pretty much because if we started e-mail spamming, for example, I'm sure they'd cut us off). My residential service costs $75/mo for 30Mbit down/3Mbit up (also cable), and I have never once been scolded for running any kind of server.

Why should I really be too upset about Google restricting the use of its bandwidth to non-commercial purposes for the 5 or 6 people they are serving, again?

I believe the point is that Google is now publically arguing against net neutrality after championing it for so many years. It's not about their customers, it's about their lobbying power and money and how it could adversely affect us in the not-so-distant future.

Re:Don't be evil (some of the time)

[xQx]

They can specify an upstream bandwidth without violating net neutrality, but to put arbitrary limits on what data I can send in my upstream packets is definitely violating neutrality.

That's true.

You've convinced me. It's like the policy that Telstra in Australia once had, where they wanted to charge you extra to have more than one PC access the net behind a NAT device. It's bullsh*t, because they should have the right to limit actual resources, not make arbitrary stereotypical rules.

As AC said in reply to my previous post - Arbitrarily blocking "server" traffic is behind both the letter, and (after a quick read of wiki) the intent of the Net Neutrality act.

However, we are beginning to see this plan be released in Australia, not just to arbitrarily segment the market, but because a residential plan will no longer get a real-world IP. You will be given a private IP and be one of 300 people sharing a single IPv4 address, masqueraded with carrier-grade NAT.

Why? Because when IPv4 address space is worth $20 per IP, putting 300 customers behind one IP address saves $6,000. Putting 30,000 customers behind only 100 IP addresses saves > $500,000.

So, the question is, if Google were supporting this arbitrary decision with a technical limitation done for commercial purposes - is it still a net neutrality issue?

After all, all "servers" are being treated equally.

Misleading Article

[Anonymous Coward]

No they didn't. Nearly every consumer ISP has clauses that state you can't run "business servers" through the residential connections. While that term is broad and hard to enforce, ISP's don't hassle you if your traffic is light or unobtrusive. I've only been notified by Charter about my server when it got a PHP/SQL injection and hosted a virus. As soon as that was cleared up and patched they didn't care about it.

Re:Misleading Article

[Carewolf]

No they didn't. Nearly every consumer ISP has clauses that state you can't run "business servers" through the residential connections.

Well, probably in the US, the rest of the world is not that silly.

But even accepting that. Nearly every consumer ISP also was against net neutrality because it would disallow them from applying silly rules like that to maximize profit. Google claimed to be FOR net neutrality, well exactly until they became an ISP, and now they appear are against it.

Re:FCC Troll?

[jdogalt]

According to the Google reply, the complainer doesn't even have Google Fiber service, or live in an area where Google provides fiber services. Go complain to your own ISP, buddy. FYI, his ISP is Time Warner Cable

Complainant here. I was living in Kansas City when the complaint was made, and for months after. I have since moved a few miles east. I think you'll see that I am not the only residential internet user who would like to be able to run a server without violating their contract.

and so the internet dies.

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole original IDEA was peer to peer networking that could route around damage. Somehow, we've let it become "everything gets routed through a few big players, and they can tell you what packets you can send and receive".

Sad thing is, this direction has been BLINDINGLY obvious for over a decade, easy. But nobody cared. It's only going to get worse and worse, until the internet is TV 2.0, just like the media companies wanted. And we - the internet using public - sat idly by and let them do it.

Re:well

[iggymanz]

you are confused.

first of all, we paid the telcoms *billions* of dollars in the 1990s to provide us with high speed networking. guess what they did with that money instead?

now we get 1/20 or less the bandwidth of the rest of the world.

the bandwidth leeches are the telecoms.

if I am paying for x mBytes down and y kbytes up, there is no ambiguity about what that means I am paying for (and note again, fhese rates are *pitifully slow*)

so no, we're not to cry you a river about what the lines can carry. those LEECHES, who have stolen billions from we the taxpayer and we the subscribers, can upgrade their gear so they can provide what they claim to have sold us.

quit being a shill for the LEECHES

Re:No, it is simple economics

[citizenr]

If you want high speed net access, and don't want to pay a lot, you have to play nice with others and share. You can be offered 100mbit or gig to your home, with backhaul to more or less support it, for not too much money. However you can't be offered dedicated bandwidth in that amount unless you want to pay a bunch more. Just how it works.

ah, so its the same as limited Unlimited offers then? pay for what we advertise, but dont you dare using it?

Re:As someone who HASN'T

[BrokenHalo]

While I have an android device, it hasn't got google play/appstore, login, nor data service to it... Android 4.3's restrictions, google's no-server limitations, etc are all pushing the masses towards sheepitude...

This sounds confused. Just about the only android devices that don't have data service are e-readers, which are pretty safe from any evil impositions. As for Android 4.3, the restrictions are for profiles that *you* impose. If it's a single user device, you don't have to use them. And, of course, if you don't care for the way Google implements Android, there's always the choice of CyanogenMod/AOSP if you don't like the idea of Firefox OS or Linux distros for mobile.

As for the no-server limitation, it all depends on what you're doing with it. If you are using bandwidth provided at no cost by Google, it's a bit inconsiderate to hog resources with a high-traffic server, making them unavailable to others. If all you're doing is running a little mail server for a handful of users, I doubt if Google could give a fuck.

Re:No, it is simple economics

[complete loony]

An ISP should provide me the ability to send and receive IP packets, routed to and from other IP addresses on the globally route-able internet. Nothing more, nothing less.

If I'm not allowed to use a connection continuously at it's peak capacity, then write the exact limit in bandwidth terms into the contract. eg no more than X bandwidth Up/Down over period Y.

Don't like it? Don't run an ISP.

Re:As someone who HASN'T

[MrNaz]

If all you're doing is running a little mail server for a handful of users, I doubt if Google could give a fuck.

I believe the whole point of this article is that Google are publicly stating that they do give a **** and that they support legally blocking you from doing it.