Slashdot Mirror
Deutsche Telecom Calls For Google and Facebook To Be Regulated Like Telcos
An anonymous reader writes Tim Hoettges, the CEO of the world's third-largest telecoms company, has called for Google and Facebook to be regulated in the same way that telcos are, declaring that "There is a convergence between over-the-top web companies and classic telcos" and "We need one level regulatory environment for us all." The Deutsche Telekom chief was speaking at Monday's Mobile World Congress, and further argued for a loosening of the current regulations which telcos operate under, in order to provide the infrastructure development that governments and policy bodies are asking of them. Hoettges' imprecation comes in the light of news about the latest Google Dance — an annual change in ranking criteria which boosts some businesses and ruins others. The case for and against regulating Google-level internet entities comes down to one question: who do you trust to 'not be evil'?
Good luck with that Adolf-wanna-be
Does Grandma's blog have to be regulated too?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The socialists are on the warpath lately.
whole different business. just because Warner and Fox and Universal used film and books and TV channels to push entertainment doesn't mean Google and Facebook can't use OC192s to push entertainment. sit back, sell your fiber per bit at retail, and enjoy it.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
As Google and Facebook have monopolies similar to Telcos own networks it is logical to control these monopolies. However, coming from Deutsche Telekom is a little strange, as they always try to shake monopoly control in Germany.
Just use Yahoo! or anything else. or stop complaining.
Google sure, because they have an ISP part... but only the ISP part is to be regulated.. which it already is...
The search engine, youtube and what not are SERVICES, nobody is forcing anybody to use them. If Bing and the others actually worked properly, people would use those instead.
Does not mean they have to be broken up. Every organization, group, or idea, will run its natural course. They all hit a peak, and plateau and maybe fade away or crash and burn or stagnate. I'd also like to see Mr. Tim do that to his own organisation, cause he's the third biggest telco and is surely 2 steps from becoming pure evil, as per his own logic.
Nobody, especially the regulators. The question that I'm more concerned about is which services are voluntary, and which ones are compulsory. I use Google's search engine and Facebook, but I don't have to. There are a ton of alternatives to each for internet search and social media. The fact that they happen to be the largest/most popular should not make them subject to special rules.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
can connect To dying. See? It's
First off, TFA is crap.
What SPECIFIC regulations does Tim Hoettges want applied to Google / Facebook? And WHY those specific regulations?
Is Grandma's Facebook page the same as a "blog"? Grandma probably does not run her own webserver. Is she using wordpress.com or something similar? Would they be regulated?
Where are the follow up questions?
Sometimes Google does something that has an adverse effect on a business. So he throws that into the first topic. They are not the same.
Still less than Apple. WHO CARES? But throw that in, too.
"... snoogly-googly ..." Better throw that in, too.
"... known in the SEO industry as the âGoogle Danceâ(TM)*." Think about that. An entire INDUSTRY has popped up because some business are adversely effected by Google changing its algorithms. Bad for A but good for B means A pays C to be placed higher than B. As long as A or B or C are NOT Google, what is the problem?
I have always struggled to understand how some technology makes the transition from being a luxury or niche appeal, to something that government starts to feel is an entitlement or is deserving of regulation. In that sense I watch and see some technologies become victims of their own success -- too many people "rely" on something, and you become a public good and it's out of your control.
How did telephone service become a guaranteed-access human right and lifeline? When will the internet become so essential that to not have it is unacceptable and must be subsidized?
When Sirius and XM radio merged, there was such scrutiny to determine whether that was an unfair narrowing of competition -- for satellite radio entertainment for fucks sake. Yet 5 years before that, the field hardly even existed -- and that was not viewed as a lack of competition!
I would like to know the theory of when something crosses that border...
Mmm...tacos.
Yahoo! ?
Since the Evil Ice Queen has taken over as CEO, Yahoo! is THE worst company to go with!
trustableEntity != government
Directly responsible for over 99% of all wars in the history of the planet.
Legal authority to execute citizens for arbitrary reasons, with only very rare exception.
Legal monopoly on anything it happens to desire at the time.
No thanks. I'll take my chances with the private sector. At least there's a theoretical choice to change what company I work with. There's no choice in what government I'm forced to work with, even in theory.
Some BundesBeamter (German official clerks) are confused between communications means and content providers. Google and Facebook are end-point attractions, not means of communication. They are far more like newspapers than delivery routes. At the limit, they might be considered messaging services and regulated like a post office or parcel carriers.
Odd how all these errors are always in "their" favor and never in ours. As such they cannot be random mistakes.
Naturally, a statist wants to regulate private enterprise.
This is a complete distortion of why telecom companies are regulated. There's only limited space on utility poles and in conduits under streets. There's only finite radio spectrum available. Those are limited, publicly owned resources. Whoever controls them has a monopoly on them, by definition. It simply isn't possible for arbitrarily many companies to run their own fiber along those poles or use that spectrum. So we pick just a few companies to give monopolies to, then regulate them to make sure they behave responsibly.
But search engines? Social networks? You've got tons to choose from, and new ones are started all the time. If Google and Facebook are the most popular, it's not because they have exclusive use of a finite, publicly owned resource.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Hubbard and Mi4e Don't be a sling Time wholesome and
Google is a customer of the teleco I work for. They are effectively regulated because we are regulated. I presume Facebook is no different.
Slow your roll there guys, your not going to make Google any more regulated than your customers are ...
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Are the search results relevant to my query?
That's all I care about.
I don't give two shits about someone's web portal losing eyeballs and customers. If you're selling relevant products, you'll show up in the search results. If you're not, I don't give a damn about you. You don't have a "right" to profit -- you have to earn it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"We can't compete so we need the government to step in."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
This is understandable in a way given the almost 100% market share for search that google enjoys in Europe vs the US 68% or so and the European (especially German) fondness for regulation... no matter how alien it seems to me. Even if it is a bad idea / good idea or whatever lets be honest, if Germany wants to regulate their google.de TLD do any of us outside of Germany really care?
The Google Dance. IMO- What a horrible phrase to try and describe the situation. How does this change in any way indicate a "dance"?
Deutsche Telekom is still very close to the German government. This guy is a mouthpiece for the Merklin. Germany/EU envies Google's power and its function as a gateway to the web. They already forced their "right to be forgotten" censorship law on Google, this is the prelude to the next step.
Here's a better idea:
We create standard internet protocols to handle the functions that Google and Facebook currently provide as walled-garden services. They are only exploiting a gap in the functionality of the Internet. If the Internet caught up with user expectations and provided these functions natively, we would not have a problem.
No regulation required.
Company's name is Deutsche Telekom.
It's a shame really. That would have been an infinitely more fascinating article.
Microsoft, Oracle, or in the pas MySpace?
Your Average Joe
At what point does the Zagat's guide turn into such a monopoly?
September 8, 2011, the day they were acquired by Google?
Deutsche Telekom tried twice to build "Google killers" with millions in government subsidies as part of the Quaero project. First,t hey picked a major fight with the French, then they got more government funding, and still failed to come up with something competitive.
Since Telekom has shown to be utterly incapable of competing with better products, even with massive subsidies, they are now going to German regulators and trying to win in the market through lobbying and politicking. What a bunch of losers.
For example, look at AirBus. It is a de facto EU sponsored monopoly. It has as much autonomy from the state as the Chinese companies owned by the Chinese military. No one in the EU bats an eye over this. (Note: US companies in the military-industrial complex get a similar ride to AirBus. I'm not addressing the issue of US hypocrisy right now.)
Imagine for a moment that Google was state regulated. It would end up like the banks, telcos or cable industry: the worst conceivable combination of predatory monopoly capitalism and government bureaucracy. The ability of regulated monopolies to warp the structure of regulation is unstoppable. So you get events like the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, followed a government bailout, where not one banker was even charged with a criminal offense, much less convicted. All the scum sucking bankers ended up with more money then they started with after the dust cleared. And we are no closer to effective regulation then before 2008. It's like instead of busting drug cartels, we privatized the Boarder Patrol and outsourced it to drug runners.
So regulating Google is a Bad Idea. Even though "Don't do Evil" is a lie they tell themselves, we are all a lot better off with an independent Google (and Facebook) then we would be if they got their hooks into the government.
Why is Snark Required?