Thursday, August 5, 2010

Google: don't be evil - really?

NY times is reporting that Google and Verizon are in talks in selling Internet priorities (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/technology/05secret.html?_r=1).
Google's slogan "don't be Evil", is not cool anymore. Or using Steve Jobs words:
"Don't be evil" slogan Google's known for? "Bullshit"



Internet access carriers are having more and more trouble to generate more revenue. In the last 10 years the consumer costs to access the Internet has been constantly decreasing and at the same time getting faster. In 2000, I paid for an ISDN Internet connection $60 a month. Today i have a 10 Mbps connection for $29 a month, which is 20 times faster than ISDN.
Therefore they are trying to come up with new paying methods. Verizon is going to do the TV approach (like getting for a low price 20 standard channels, but the cool channels costs extra.), user pays more to get certain content faster delivered.
The beauty of the Internet has been, that it is or was at least open, anybody had the ability to get the content they want with a speed independent of content (ignoring server speeds of course). Consumer will pay more money to get faster streaming, but is this ok to pay by content type?
Google is fighting since years with China and other countries arguing that internet needs to be open and should not be censored. But now Google is talking with Verizon to pay for their YouTube service to be delivered faster which is for me kind of censoring too.
This would give Google an advantage to other video platforms which can't afford to pay premiums. Pretty sure the consumer has to pay for this too. If I want to see YouTube videos I might have to pay $$ to get them in HD? We will soon find in our mail a letter from Verizon telling us that we can pay extra for each portal we want to get the content in a faster speed.
I understand companies have sometimes to redefine their models to keep up with demand and change their billing methods to survive. But that Google is even talking with Verizon is an act evil. It is against their codex they so often use as their weapon of fights.
I am seeing Google since years going, what they call "evil". Google is buying one company after the other to either eliminate competition or to build the biggest internet empire. I never heard of an empire which is not in a way evil.
Google is not anymore an university spinoff run by young students. Google is controlling and powerful. I don't mind if Google is powerful and evil, I am maple enough to choose my search engines etc. I even admire that somebody can build multiple billion dollar company in such a short time, but I ask Google to put their slogan into the basement and hide it in a box.

- Posted using My iPad

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