Everyone, by now, has probably heard of Google’s ridiculous corporate mantra of “Do No Evil”. But apparently, they misspelled it and forgot to add in a few words to reveal their TRUE mantra of “Do Evil, Lots of it, and Be Sneaky About it to Gain Lots of Money and Trust to Ultimately Gain a Monopoly of the World”. You can see how they it was easy for them to forget to include all those words. It was an honest mistake. But now the cat’s out of the bag and we do know that Google is proposing a plan, alongside Verizon, that will kill net neutrality once and for all. Google and Verizon set out seven principles that they think will promote wired Internet for everyone, whilst leaving a huge giant loophole about mobile Internet for them to supposedly exploit in the future for monopolistic gains.
The proposal to the Federal Communications Commission does a good job of outlining transparent net neutrality rules for the entire Internet service providing industry to abide by, but those rules mostly apply to the wired Internet service sector. Their statement about their different treatment of wired and wireless Internet rules is that “wireless broadband is different from the traditional wireline world, in part because the mobile marketplace is more competitive and changing rapidly”. Granted, this is not a formal business deal but only a policy suggestion to the FCC, this still raises some questions about Google’s motives.
Under the new proposal, the wireless networks “would be excused from every provision except the transparency requirement”. The other provisions would have prevented wireless network providers from abusing things like prioritizing some websites over others by charging content providers money for a speedy connection to their site. This is the exact thing that Google’s crusade against net neutrality should be fighting against. Yet, Google is sneakily trying to pass off this huge loophole for what I can only assume is a future competitive, monopolistic advantage.
If Google succeeds, this will have huge repercussions to the entire economy of the Internet. The death of net neutrality means the birth of Internet censorship through indirect, slow access to “certain questionable” websites. So, whoever pays more will offer users a faster connection whereas the poor, blogger with an opinion cannot be accessed as easily as before. Also, I can see a day where governments will want slower access to videos or content that has been deemed “inappropriate for public consumption”.
The thing I hate the most is how Google is become evil-y hypocritical. The promised that they will do good for the world and now they turned around and stabbed us all in the Internet back. If they go against their word on this important subject, what will they decide to lie about next?
