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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'?
Does Grandma's blog have to be regulated too?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
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 to inform you: you have won the war against us. You've helped us to establish one of the most modern democracies, with features and systems your 18th century state can't compete with.
Remaining in gratitude, a german coward.
Just use Yahoo! or anything else. or stop complaining.
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.
The thing I like best about Germany. Every national monument, museum, library, air traffic control center or police station has a beer garden attached.
That and the beer (and the beer prices).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If you get tired of Google, you "quit using it"?
Try that as a business. If Google arbitrarily decides that you no longer show up on search lists, or even that you no longer show up on a map--your business basically ends, unless all your business comes from the sidewalk.
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?
Google does not arbitrarily filter search results. They filter search results in ways that makes them the most money. It's bad for business for them to simply remove search results because "they don't like you." Such a policy be bad for their own business, as it would hurt their search results, giving an excellent opportunity for competitors to claim a portion of their vast market share. Obviously there are complications to this, as Google does filter results in a way to promote their own business activities. But again, this is hardly arbitrary: they do so because they think it will make them more money.
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."
It's arbitrary as far as an individual business is concerned, and that business doesn't necessarily have any control, insight or predictive ability over why it happens. If Google changes their rules and screws over 5% of businesses in order to make more money--even after you factor in the loss of business to Google because of its poor practices--then of course it will do so. Government is at least theoretically obligated not to do that.
i'm very much in favour of regulation of businesses, but that's one of the things that I think the government has no business regulating. Govt SHOULD be regulating google's surveillance of the public, google's business practices, google's tax evasion and many other things, but the content of google's website should be beyond their ability to regulate.
it's their site, their search engine - it's entirely up to them what criteria they use for ranking pages and when and how they change that algorithm. Nobody has a *right* to either appear on google's search or to a particular page-ranking.
and from a pragmatic POV, changing the ranking algorithms is the only way that google can keep ahead of SEO spammers and the like who would otherwise make search engines complely fucking useless because you'd never find anything but spammed crap.
it's not a binary choice to regular google or to not regulate "Google-level internet entities" - of course they should be regulated, humans need protection against corporations, but it's a matter of which things can and should be regulated and which should not.
If the internet is a public utility, though, then the public has a right to decide how to regulate that utility and how it's used.
Google's profits don't trump the public interest.
Google isn't the internet, and the internet isn't Google. Nobody anywhere ever is going to stop you from making your own search engine. But making a good search engine is hard. Google is as popular as they are because they're good at making a good search engine. What you're proposing is having the government decide what is and isn't a good search result. And I'm going to tell you right now, that's a SHITTY idea.
If Google Search is regulated as a utility, then search results stop being sorted by what you're probably looking for, and instead is sorted by whatever the public (typically some politician's cabinet members appointed to a regulatory authority) votes is "fair," and so we have to make sure everybody's voice is equally heard. This would mean that for example if you search for topics of Atheism, then the Church of Scientology gets to have their links near the top of your search results, because you know, it's only fair that they get represented equally among other religions.
That, and people like Search King will have the right to spam your search results with irrelevant bullshit, mainly because it's only fair that they too be heard.
Key Here Deutche Telecom, they are not known under that name in america so obviusly they are not concerned with US regulation.
Under EU regulation there were never a debate, broadband have always been under common carrier regulation and last mile subletting were made mandatory in the mid 90ies. And the anti molopoly regulation in europe are a lot less useless then the US counterpart.
Both Facebook and Google are being monitored by the EU antitrust regulators due to revenue sharing agreement with mobile and im guessing Deutche Telecom is hinting that there might be stuff going on in the backroom at contract negotiations that might in effect be favoratism of certain carriers or bribing to become default, which you cannot do as a "dominant niche player" in the european marketplace.
There are also mumblings in the corner that google might be filtering out competitors from the first page of search results and issue that have led to court cases against google. Again a big no no for a large company in europe.