Comments on: Nothing happening here. Move along.

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:40:11 +0000

Small Webmaster, I’ll bet that Google isn’t getting a free ride from any ISP where it places its edge caching gear. But I’d like to hear hard evidence either way, mostly because I’d like to know the economics of this stuff.

By: Harry Lewis

Harry Lewis — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:12:58 +0000

But that isn’t a Net neutrality issue. Neutrality has to to with favorable delivery of certain packets over others. Even the most fervent of neutrality advocates don’t plan to create a world in which having money doesn’t help you at all in any way. It’s a bit like Pagerank. You can’t pay Google to increase it; Google is neutral to your bribes. But if you have a lot of money you can pay an SEO firm to spruce up your web page in all the ways that it knows will raise your Pagerank. So you spend a bunch of money and your Pagerank goes up, which is all you really cared about. Decide for yourself whether that is unfair; either way, it doesn’t make Google non-neutral.

By: is that neutrality?

is that neutrality? — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:26:34 +0000

[...] has been a lot of debate about whether or not this Wall Street Journal Article suggesting that Google is negotiating for [...]

By: Small Webmaster

Small Webmaster — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:03:09 +0000

Doc, I follow your blog and know that you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, so I hope that you will consider this issue a little more carefully and realize that it DOES matter. You just have to take off the doctrinaire glasses of the “network neutrality” crowd, who are myopically focused on the pipes, to see why.

Think about this for a second. Google is likely to be able to place an edge cache at the site of any ISP it wants. Probably for free, because Google is big. Google, YouTube, and its related services consume SO much bandwidth and are SO wildly popular that no ISP would say no. But could the ISP afford to allow just ANYONE to get free hosting by putting a cache at their sites? Doubtful. Caches take up space and power and require access for maintenance. And of course, would-be competitors won’t be able to buy space on Google’s private edge caches. So, in what way is this neutral? Google can get its servers into places where CoolNewInternetGarageStartup.com can’t. Google is still getting preferential access to infrastructure — it’s just co-location space instead of pipes.

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:39:20 +0000

Akamai may not be a content provider, but it privileges the content providers who can afford its services.

And yes, Google will be able to do things not available to other companies. They already do, without the carriers’ help.

What’s lost here is the opportunity that carriers have to do business with anybody, including their own “consumers”. Hey, I’d be glad to pay Verizon a few bucks more every month for a few IP addresses and the ability to run a server here. I’d pay them for a higher service tier as well. But Verizon sticks with antique “business” service pricing that starts as a multiple of its home service, with lower throughput rates. This prevents more business than it brings in. Thus my money for the services I want lays there on the table.

By: Net Neutrality on Google

Net Neutrality on Google — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:36:01 +0000

[...] Net Neutrality: Doc Searls – scrittore, giornalista e co-autore di The Cluetrain Manifesto -, in un articolo di oggi, scrive che si tratta in realtà di “edge caching“, in pratica di una pulizia profonda [...]

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:55:16 +0000

Pauly, the carriers can decide whether or not they want to rent space to more than one company at their “edge” facilities. But the WSJ story was about Google. And Google says it is not looking for exclusive deals here.

By: Pauly

Pauly — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:49:42 +0000

Maybe I’m missing something due to gaps in my network engineering expertise, but regarding “so long as Google doesn’t make the deals exclusive, which it says it’s not doing”, isn’t it up to the telcos/cablecos to determine exclusivity/nonexclusivity here?

By: SRSL FRIENDLY

SRSL FRIENDLY — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:49:29 +0000

Doc, You’re forgetting that AKAM isn’t a content provider.

Remember Lessig’s objection? “If Google, for example, knew it could buy a kind of access for its video content that iFilm couldn’t, then it could exploit its advantage to create an even greater disadvantage for its competitors”

- This is GOOG’s attempt to buy access that iFilm can’t.

Do you srsly believe that GOOG caches *won’t* do things unavailable to purchase by others (AKAM included)?

Startups won’t be able to buy access to the caches with the special sauce. This is a delivery land-grab made by a rich, savvy content owner/provider when the ISPs are looking for money. Murdock himself would blush at the devilish genius.

By: Net Neutrality on Google « Open World

Net Neutrality on Google « Open World — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:43:46 +0000