p2pnet news view | Advertising:- Back in September, “Google has substantially upped the ante in its challenge to Microsoft as ruler of all it surveys,” said p2pnet, going on:

“Like Microsoft it has: a philanthropic arm (via Bill and Melinda) to show at heart, it’s a deeply caring entity; apparently limitless  financial and legal resources; a political unit (Bill doesn’t need one – he goes f2f with world leaders); the beginnings of a Google branded Internet; control of the medical records of millions of people; and so on and etc.”

We were talking about Google’s bullet-riddled Chrome browser, at the time.

More recently, “MySpace and Google exist solely to force unwanted advertising down the throats of uncooperative users to the ultimate benefit of shareholders — and for that purpose only,” said p2pnet.

“What it boils down to is: they’ve teamed up because they think they’ve found a way to corral their mutual users so data which should remain personal and private can instead be used as advertising fodder, and to herd ‘members’ to sites in which G & MS have a pecuniary interest.”

Now, “Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal,” says the WSJ.

Fast lane for its own content, eh? That definitely looks Google-ish.

“Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers,” says the story, going on:

“At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same — nobody is supposed to jump the line.”

And that would, “seem to fly in the face of the company’s long-standing support for network neutrality, but Google has called the WSJ’s article ‘confused’ and says that it remains committed to network neutrality,” says Wired, going on »»»

The contention comes from the varying definitions of network neutrality. The simplest version of network neutrality says that all internet traffic should delivered at the same speed over the same network. Unfortunately for supporters of the everything-is-absolutely-equal version of network neutrality, the concept has always been more ideal myth than reality.

The problem lies with what are known as content delivery networks (CDNs) which use so-called edge servers, located physically closer to you, to cache and deliver content faster. When you request the content from, in this case YouTube, it can be transmitted from the proposed edge servers rather than from Google’s central servers.

Wired goes on Google explains Open edge as a plan to, “put its own edge-cache servers directly inside ISP networks so that downloading a YouTube video or Picasa photo album is faster”.

Moreover, it and other net neutrality supports have, “long made a notable exception for edge caching and believe that such practices actually make for faster overall internet,” says the story, continuing »»»

Consider the web as we know it: the vast majority of it is text, which doesn’t require a tremendous amount of bandwidth. But then there are video and streaming services which do require massive amounts of bandwidth. Without edge caching, the video traffic would, as the joke goes, “clog the tubes” and effectively slow down the web.

Besides, argue defenders of Google’s plan, what the company is doing is no different that what Akamai does.

But there is a difference, Wired points out, to wit, “Akamai has no content of its own and therefore it’s always in Akamai’s best interest to ensure that all its traffic is treated the same.

“Google, on the other hand, does have its own content and, obviously, it has a vested interest in making that content faster and more accessible than its competitors.”

It adds:

“So is the WSJ right? Well, while it seems logical to argue that edge caching gives those that use it an unfair fast lane on the web, the reality is that, without edge caching, the whole web might be quite a bit slower.”

p2pnet – Google enters browser wars with Chrome, September 2, 2008
bullet-riddled Chrome – Google Chrome flunks password security test, December 12, 2008
unwanted advertising – Google, MySpace: unholy ad alliance, December 9, 2008
Wall Street Journal – Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web, December 15, 2008
Wired – Google Blasts WSJ, Says it’s Still ‘Committed to Network Neutrality’, December 15, 2008

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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