Google Still Goes Evil

That Google/Verizon deal from last week that Google denied?  Repackaged for this week.  Still evil.

Google and Verizon have announced their joint policy agreement on the Internet and broadband, seeking a continuation of the free and open policies around the public Internet while allowing for additional services outside of that network without a commitment to net neutrality and only a commitment to transparency.

In other words, Google and Verizon want to build their own premium services internet that has no neutrality.  It's Google and Verizon's national network, and you would have to be a customer of it -- a paying customer -- to use it.

Ergo why would Google or Verizon put anything worthwhile on the "old internet" when all the exciting new stuff will go on the Google/Verizon network instead?

No, they're not going to make the internet pay-for-play.  They're going to take Google and Verizon to their own network and make THAT pay-for-play.

On a conference call, CEOs Eric Schmidt of Google and Ivan Seidelberg of Verizon both announced the policy agreement, the outline of which is available here. While both of them criticized the New York Times story from last week and other reports about the two corporations backing down from a commitment to net neutrality (“almost all of which has been completely wrong,” Schmidt said, and asked reporters that they base their criticism “on what is actually announced today”), what they produced doesn’t necessarily conflict with the story.

The joint policy agreement makes a distinction between wireline and wireless broadband, basically the Internet you get on your computer, and what you can get on a smart phone, PDA, or some other not-yet-invented device. On wireline broadband, which the CEOs kept calling the public Internet, they displayed a full commitment to Internet openness and freedom.

Sure, it's the difference between HBO and public access TV, dig?

Meanwhile the new Google/Verizon internet gets all the cool tech, and the "public internet" gets...well now why would it get any investment from Google or Verizon at all?

What, did you think Google Phone, Gmail, Youtube, Google Earth, and Google News was going to be free forever?

You're funny.  "Don't be evil" my ass.  Google is going to wreck the internet and rebuild it in its own graven image.