Tag: google

Behold, your new internet!

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Google and Verizon have an idea of what the open internet of the future might look like, and today announced a policy proposal that the FCC – and eventually Congress – may take into consideration as they wade through these issues.

Leaving aside the meat of their proposal for a second, the deal is a good financial move.  Internet carriers and internet services figure to have different opinions, and those entities are already spending a lot of money in Washington.  By agreeing on something now, these companies could save millions in lobbying and grassroots campaigns later.

But beyond the strategy is the actual proposal, and there are two items which stand out.  First, the proposal only applies to wireline internet carriers – the people who plug the internet into your house, also typically known as your cable company.  Verizon’s FiOS service is also under that plan, but unlike those carriers, Verizon also has mobile access points to the internet through Android smartphones.

The second is that, while the proposal does call for “transparency” among internet service providers, it makes no such call for transparency or “search neutrality” from the other companies that serve as gatekeepers – notably, Google and Facebook, the companies which provide the lenses through which you see the internet.

The result is a plan which does choose some losers, but which allow its proponents to maintain their business practices.  So the deal is a good move in more ways than simply keeping lobbying costs down, if you’re Google or Verizon.

Predictable: Apple gets sued, Google creates contrast

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

On the day that Apple is in the news as a co-defendant of an anti-trust class action lawsuit, Google is in the news for making its mobile device application process more open.

Whether it’s impeccable planning or dumb luck, it’s good news for Google, which is under heavy fire for its business practices across the pond.  Google is the enemy of several prominent technology companies: it’s Google vs. Facebook for how to organize and monetize personal information for ads; it’s Google vs. Microsoft for the share of our desktop applications and web browsers; and of course is Apple vs. Google for the smartphone operating system market.

Without overtly saying so, Google is trying to distance themselves from both the iPhone/iPad app store and their worries in Europe with today’s announcement. The open app builder is a nod to the legal and regulatory hurdles that any large company faces, but it’s also an important business and positioning strategy.

Computer nerds of yesteryear may begin to recognize Google’s strategy for taking down Apple.  In the 1980s, Apple computers were an island – Apple software only worked on Apple hardware.  IBM, the other major personal computer manufacturer,  built a platform that could be cloned, resulting in “IBM-compatible” computers.  As computers found their way into the home, the consumer had two choices – one computer that could run software built for multiple platforms, and one which could only run Apple-specific programs.  It didn’t kill off Apple’s computer business, but it’s the reason that Windows PC’s (the descendant of the IBM-compatibles) have the market share they have today.

Today, Google’s Android OS is available on multiple smartphones from multiple carriers, just like Microsoft’s MS-DOS was available on multiple types of computers by 1989.  And Apple’s iPhone only runs apps designed specifically for Apple’s iPhone.  And by democratizing their app process, Google is trying to remind us all of just that.

Viacom, YouTube, and what it means for innovation

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

YouTube’s victory in Viacom’s piracy lawsuit will be, in the long term, a good thing for online innovation.

Almost a decade ago, Napster was dismantled because its users shared songs.  The technology it was based on was neutral – and could have been used to share legal sound files just as easily as illegal files.  But the technology became the target of content creators – musicians – concerned about people using the technology for piracy.

Blaming Napster because people used it to do something illegal is like blaming a hotel because someone turned a room into a meth lab.  The same analogy can be used for YouTube’s situation: they built the rails for video sharing.  People could use that to share a bootleg copy of Shrek 8, thus cheating Mike Myers out of his cut of the domestic gross or DVD sales.  They could also use it to share a video of a cat falling off the bed, or to create a video blog, or to jump start a comedy career, or to reveal a Congressman roughing up a college kid, or a Senator uttering something that sounds like a racial slur and changing the course of the 2008 Presidential election.

To be clear, YouTube should be held accountable for helping police piracy when concerns are brought to their attention, just as a hotel owner should cooperate with warrant-bearing law enforcement officials investigating meth distribution that seems to be coming from their hotel.  The people dealing meth should be punished.  If the hotel stonewalls and knowingly protects said meth dealers, they should be punished.  But otherwise, the hotel owner is just someone providing a product for private use, and can’t be held liable for its mis-use.

There are, of course, legitimate questions about how important Google feels it is to do right by the people it makes money off of – and the dicey question of how much knowledge a site can have of the activity before it makes a move.  But the result of the Google/Viacom case has less to do with a clash of the corporate titans than with shielding future start ups from liability (and excessive damages) for honest efforts to build online social networks.  If start up sites are held liable for their members’ illegal activities, it could crush innovation and entrepreneurship.  Under the Napster rules, some poor schmuck who isn’t as big as Google could lose his shirt for building a website in his basement because of the actions of the users.  The YouTube rules are simply more fair.

Ant-iTrust?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Apple – or, more specifically, Apple CEO Steve Jobs – flexed some muscles in the last week by proclaiming that Adobe Flash has no place on the iPhone, the iPad, or whatever’s iNext.  As previously discussed (here and there, as well), the walled garden that is the App Store positions Apple not only as the gatekeeper of “tech cool,” but also as the potential object of an antitrust investigation.

Today, two Washington agencies are reportedly deciding who gets to launch an Apple antitrust investigation.

As easy as it would be to point to Jobs’s chest-beating, this is the second time in two weeks where a company is drawing ire from inside the beltway.  And in both cases, the companies in the crosshairs are direct competitors to Google.  That doesn’t make Google the Michael Corleone of federal tech policy, taking out enemies silently and sequentially (though it would be kind of cool if it were).  It does mean that technology policymakers seem to be on the same page as Google as far as what access to the internet or the mobile web should look like.

Senators make privacy demands to Google

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Oh, sorry, that’s Facebook, whose tentacles are constantly expanding throughout the web, but not in Washington.  Sen. Charles Schumer and colleagues have posted an open letter on Facebook’s wall demanding to know just how the social network’s privacy options work.

In the meantime, Google continues to track, store, and process user data from various points in order to build advertising profiles – a practice which raises concerns not only about privacy, but about reach.  In fact, Google’s signature service, search, has a much lower barrier to entry than Facebook’s; while Facebook makes you create an account and is thematically based on the idea of sharing personal information, Google’s search service is open to anyone trackable by IP address.

So why does Facebook get a nasty letter while Google gets a pass?

It may have something to do with the fact that Google spent $1.38 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2010 alone.  More significant than the actual dollars spent is the intellectual investment: Google has clearly made it a priority to be a Washington, DC player on both sides of the aisle.  This level of involvement positions Google as a resource, preventing policymakers from seeing what is an obvious parallel.

Twit-story: The Library of Congress vs. Google Replay

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 4 Comments

The Library of Congress will collect and store the full volume of Twitter for “scholarly and research purposes.” Twitter is psyched because it’s another demonstration of legitimacy:

It is our pleasure to donate access to the entire archive of public Tweets to the Library of Congress for preservation and research. It’s very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history. It should be noted that there are some specifics regarding this arrangement. Only after a six-month delay can the Tweets will be used for internal library use, for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and preservation.

As evidenced by events like the Iranian election protests, Twitter users can act as documentarians of history as it happens.  The Library of Congress’s recognition of this is another sign that Twitter has grown up a bit; the timing couldn’t be better, coming just a couple days after they announced their advertising model.

For the vast majority of Twitter’s data, this announcement is really a non-story – after all, there’s nothing stopping anyone from visiting Twitter and accessing all public tweets.  What about accounts that have been deleted, though?  And what about the accounts that get deleted after the Library of Congress makes an official historical record of them?

Buried in Twitter’s blog post is a much “friendlier” strategy for making Tweets a part of history: Google’s Replay service, which allows users to revisit moments in history and watch events unfold through Twitter and other online media.

As with most announcements, the difference lies in the semantics.  Google Replay would pinpoint specific times and issues – in other words, it would gravitate toward tweets which were sent with the idea that they were for public consumption.  The idea of Twitter turning over a hard drive full of information to a government office may be no different in practice or outcome, but it sounds a lot creepier.  Suddenly, you may find yourself perusing your own Twitter feed to see if you have anything to worry about.  A better announcement might have been a joint release by Twitter, Google, and the Library of Congress discussing a way to incorporate publicly broadcast real-time updates into research.  It might have looked like a tool on the Library’s website, powered by Google.

The nature of Twitter makes this a minor issue, but it isn’t the only place that history is recorded in real time.   Facebook and Google Buzz have both incorporated elements to mimic Twitter’s free-flowing stream-of-consciousness format.  That means they’re just as potentially attractive to the Library of Congress as part of the “historical record” – even though their data is decidedly more sensitive.

Freedom of Informa…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Last week, Big Government covered the exposure of US Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin’s personal contact list through Google Buzz.  Though many Gmail users had the same problem, McLaughlin’s personal electronic Rolodex was embarrassing because it contained people potentially affected by the policies he was in charge of.  Because of this, Consumer Watchdog filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

And then the information was gone.  Left in its place are some tough questions about data on government computers – and whether or not that qualifies as government data.  Does Google have to release any data they have on McLuahglin?  He may have deleted his Google Buzz account, but does Google have that information backed up somewhere?

Situations like this make it clear why last week some of the biggest names in technology called on the federal government to establish strict protections on personal data.  They don’t want to be forced to reveal your personal data because then it will become obvious just how much of your data they have.

Do you want your GTV?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Google’s agreement with Sony and Intel to create a new platform for web surfing through television – in context with other recent announcements – continues Google’s efforts to find a way into your living room.

Television remains the top entertainment appliance in the household, but how content reaches that television is changing.  Not only have DVD’s and TiVO made the term “appointment television” obsolete, but the embrace of online video by content providers has greatly threatened cable’s position as the provider of high-quality content.  With web-enabled televisions becoming more prevalent, traditional cable is less important than ever.

Many cable providers are also high-speed internet providers, which is lucky for them.  But Google has been the starting point of the internet for years.  After becoming the top search engine, they created useful tools such as a customized homepage, sharable calendars, and a news aggregator; everything was built with the intention that when you sat down at your computer, Google would be the place you would want to start.  That, of course, makes it easier to collect information on you to better target their ads.

Now that the internet will be accessed more directly through television, Google wants to be your starting point there, too.  Again, all the better to target you for advertising, which is how they get their food money.

This will present some challenges for Google as various pieces of their business come together.   Remember Google’s recent announcement of plans to expand fiber optic broadband access.  That would put Google in charge of your access point to the internet (TV, computer, or Android-enabled smartphone), the pipeline that brings the internet to you (fiber optic network), and the content that you see on the internet (through search results, news aggregators, YouTube videos, Google Books, etc.).  All along the way, Google will be able to build a profile of you – what you look for, what you click on, what you watch, where you shop – and of course show you ads to make that food money.

It’s easy to see why people poke fun at Google by likening it to SkyNet, the ubiquitous and sentient machine network from the Terminator movies.  Good thing that Google isn’t evil… right?

“Who wants Google in Minnesota? Me, Al Franken.”

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

Sen. Al Franken is pushing for Google to come to Duluth, Minnesota and wire the whole place for internet.  It’s just one of many examples of cities begging Google to come and save them from choppy YouTube videos.

As the FCC debates broadband expansion plans that are beginning to sound like entitlement programs, Google is showing that acting in their own self-interest can have a public benefit:

Google makes its money connecting people with data and showing them ads along the way. Anything that increases the number of people on the internet and the amount of data they seek is good for the company. On most ISPs, YouTube videos can stutter or stop due to low connection speeds, even from “high-speed” providers. One way or another, Google seeks to quicken the net by connecting cities to high-speed fiber optic lines that transmit data with modulated light (updated) rather than the wire-based electrons employed by most ISPs (fiber-optic Verizon Fios [sic] excepted).

That said, these municipalities should remain vigilant.  No matter how free the broadband is, there are legitimate concerns about Google’s privacy record.