[gamble]

This deal is just a fig leaf. Google supported net neutrality when it suited their business goals. The moment Android took off it became a non-issue for them. If anything, they should be taking more flak. Google's enjoyed an incredibly soft treatment by the press thanks to their positioning as a company that puts ethics before profits. Yet on the issues that matter, it's increasingly clear that Google's ethics are highly situational.

[moultano]

They succeeded in getting Verizon to agree to net neutrality on the wired internet. Isn't that a strict improvement over the status quo?

[metachor]

No it is not. The status quo is that no one has yet made any binding decisions, and the telecom operators will try to get away with what they can until the FCC slaps them down.

Google just succeeded in getting Verizon to agree to net neutrality on the wired internet in exchange for removing any possibility of net neutrality on the wireless internet (which Google claims is the future of internet).

[moultano]

>in exchange for removing any possibility of net neutrality on the wireless internet (which Google claims is the future of internet).

[citation needed] This is explicitly not true according to the text of the agreement. The agreement says that it is too early to determine whether net-neutrality provisions are necessary for wireless networks, because it's a newer market and there is much more competition.

[sprout]

That kind of "let's wait and see how it looks until it evolves before we regulate" attitude is precisely what caused the current stagnation in the wired market.

The market fundamentally is under heavy regulation; wireless can't work without heavy-handed regulation of who can use what spectrum. We can't just stop at that kind of draconian regulation (which is necessary) and say that a little thing like non-discriminatory access to your absolute monopoly is too much.

[btilly]

However there are fundamental economic reasons why the wired market should lead to natural monopolies and the wireless market should lead to more competition. Therefore there is good reason to wait.

Furthermore bandwidth is limited. The proposal is not what Google wants, it is what they were able to get Verizon to agree to. I read that clause as very much of an, "We agree to disagree, and agree that our areas of agreement are worth pursuing anyways."

[moultano]

Sure, but isn't it better to legislate net-neutrality for the wired internet than not do anything at all? If this was the only legislation that could conceivably pass, would you vote for it?

[ergo98]

Google is not the government. Google is just one company. The way people are talking about this you would legitimately think that Google ran the tubes, or something. They don't.

Google is at least getting a discussion going.

[gizmomagico]

Google is telling the FCC how they might want to do things precisely because they're just one random company that couldn't possibly influence anything?

Also, they know who you are, Mr. ergo98.

[ergo98]

>Google is telling the FCC how they might want to do things precisely because they're just one random company that couldn't possibly influence anything?

Just as Verizon tells them how they want to do things. As does Microsoft, and Apple, and every other big tech company.

You grossly overstate Google's significance.

[gizmomagico]

Google is not there to "get a discussion going" - it's there to guide things towards its own interests, just like Verizon et al.

The point here is that Google is just another huge, evil(1) company among others like it, and that all its recent talk about openness is just PR-bullshit.

(1) Whatever your definition may be.

[orangecat]

http://xkcd.com/463/

[ZeroGravitas]

Could anyone explain the Android Net Neutrality link for me?

Everything Google does goes over the internet. Youtube in particular needs high bandwidth and seems like the kind of thing that would be throttled to protect cable TV. Yet everyone in the media is obsessed with the Android link and claiming Google no longer cares about net neutrality as a result of Android. But not actually explaining why this makes any sense.

Is it just because Verizon is pushing Android hardest out of the US carriers? Seems a bit weak.

[yanw]

That is an extremely naive view of things, Google is a publicly traded for profit company, any good or ethical maneuvers they make are just surplus, they tend to do it more than most, I suppose if they were completely rotten no one would criticize them this much as people would expect the worst.