Eric Schmidt on Net Neutrality 256
GillBates0 writes "Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has written an open letter to the Google user community asking them to speak out on the issue of net neutrality. The official Google Blog has a blurb on this as well. From the letter: 'In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet ... Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight.'"
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Misunderstanding? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ouch (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the internet is driven by $$$ (Score:3, Interesting)
The telcos want the tariffs relaxed so that they can provide content (think: radio & tv) over copper strand. The cable companies want tariffs tightened so that they can provide telephony over coaxial connection.
Strange thing is, no matter which one wins they're going to need to be able to provide a certain QoS for whatever they're adding to the current status-quo. The telcos will need to be able to guarantee a certain minimum bandwidth to provide a/v content. Similarly for the cable companies providing telephone service. The money in either case would seem to be arrayed against us (the consumers).
Okay, if what I've asserted above is true, is there any way to implement the kind of QoS the ISP's will need without shafting consumers? Perhaps rather than "net neutrality", a properly managed "zoned" internet could be made to work?
Just askin'.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
Disabuse yourself of the notion that what the telcos want is a "tiered internet". Charging more for changing the speedlimit is what we've got now. I pay a lot of money for a nice fast connection, with the understanding that it's nice and fast to any destination that can also do nice and fast.
What the telcos want to do, instead of charging you to go fast, they charge the friend you're driving over to see. Maybe you're going to Disneyworld, then Disney foots the bill if you drive there faster than 25 mph. Now, of course 25 doesn't make sense, after all you used to be able to drive there at 60 most of the way, but thats how it's going to work now.
The telcos repeatedly frame the issue as one of battling "network congestion" however they fail to explain how all of the packets getting resent after being dropped the first time(s) makes the congestion any better. (To further the analogy, now you're trying to go 60 on a road where everyone's going 25 because their friend didn't want to pay to see them.)
The Net IS NOT Neutral; Why PROTECT Google etc? (Score:3, Interesting)
Incumbent upon any desire to protect the ideal of net neutrality is the assumption that we currently possess a neutral system we might care to protect. This is not a valid supposition. As a first measure, I suggest that the debate on net neutrality be widened to include not only the physical network questions as it has in the past, but also the related concerns of unfair influence over the Internet including the meta and virtual entities that are Cyberspace and the World Wide Web. The only way to responsibly execute reform or regulation in this arena must be preceded by a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of the competing issues. Targeting the physical elements for legislation without examining the virtual or the broader context and consequences, could be far more disastrous than even a hands-off approach.
But how exactly is the Internet no longer neutral? Why is this expansion or redefinition of terms necessary? From the standpoint of Economic Theory, Metcalfe's Law tells us the value of a network is roughly equal to the square of the number of members of the system and Reed's Law parallels this statement for utility. When linked with network externalities (i.e. when you buy a fax machine, other fax owners benefit because they can now fax you) sites or services with many members can be transformed into powerful competitive (or anti-competitive) weapons. The vast networks of information, users, and sites, created by several web services providers are thus an in-ignorable source of inefficiencies of scale and conflicts of interest.
A capitalist, corporate driven Internet (such as we have now) cannot be as unbiased and democratic as trends such as the "blogosphere" and media representation would have it appear. Cyberspace, the meta-realm emergent from the physical "network," is highly polarized, highly prejudicial, and highly subject to the influence of powerful, unchecked, unregulated, and at times even legally protected corporations. These corporations are the very members of the "High Tech Broadband Coalition" that first advocated neutrality legislation in its current form: Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other major application, content, platform, and services providers. Of course they favor these laws! However, the virtual realm of cyberspace is dependent upon, not separate from, the physical network and should not be treated as such.
Google, arguably the most powerful entity on the World Wide Web, provides clear evidence of the current presence of partiality. A first illustration is the company's regulation of "acceptable" content for their index. Google's practice of excluding sites that do not conform to their guidelines is without question inconsistent with their professed corporate culture of doing no evil and mission of indexing the world's information. If a site were merely black flagged and sent to the bottom of the listings Google's apologetic arguments suggesting a greater good to society by influencing the organization and presentation of information on a global scale might be worth discussion. However, they do not do this; they remove content entirely from their index. This is irresponsible and a behavior they may only practice because of their commanding corporate status and extremely high power level relative to those they effectually regulate. Ironically, Google gained this position of supremacy and authority because of the prior neutral democratic nature of the Internet they now repress and because of their reputation of integ
Unintended consequences (Score:3, Interesting)
The bill says QoS has to be applied equally, regardless of source or destination. I can envision a national company who subscribes to FooCo's Internet service and pays extra to get their packets delivered at a higher priority, to speed up their VPN, VoIP, web conferencing, etc. Would this bill make that unlawful?
The bill says providers cannot block customers from sending content. Wouldn't that mean blocking a spammer from sending spam would be unlawful? Sure, you (and I) might call that "security", but I doubt the spammers will agree. Does it then get get tied up in courts or committees? You can just *bet* the spammers will use this law to their advantage if they possibly can.
And who knows what next neat idea might actually become unlawful this way.
I worry about unintended consequences almost as much as I worry about the big telcos trying to screw everyone.
"You can't do just one thing." -- Campbell's Law of Everything
Scarcity mentality...just like Entertainment ... (Score:3, Interesting)
It similar to what the entertainment industry is doing with music. They cannot sustain phenomenal growth that the switch to CD's in the 80's/90's generated, so to generate the same revenue from a relatively flat inventory, they need to figure out new ways to divide a "song" up, so they can sell the same song to you repeatedly.
With DRM, they can artificially DIVIDE your song collection once by device (requiring a new sale for each device you want to listen from), *and* 2nd, in "time". No longer is your purchase of a song a one time event, but you will be able to repurchase, the same song, each time you want to listen to it!
This method is being pioneered by the computer software industry: you don't buy programs, you "license" them, with terms subject to change anytime the licensor wants to change them. Don't like it? Too bad, some people are saying that shrink-wrap license agreements "are" binding (as though this is a done matter, but for those that believe it's a "done deal", it is.
What a great system. If you don't want to produce more of something to make more money, just get the government to help you enforce new "partitioning" schemes so you can bring in new sales of the same old product in perpetuity.
Seems like this is the quickest way, not to encourage "growth", but encourage gouging and tricks to allow you to earn more money off of less and less product. Capitolism at its finest [sic].
-l