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posted by mattie_p on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the non-soluble-fiber-is-good-for-digestion dept.

Fluffeh writes:

"Google has officially invited 34 cities in nine metro areas to become the next batch of the Google Fiber rollout.

Google said it 'genuinely would like to build in all of these cities,' but that the complexities of deploying networks may not allow it. 'During this process, we will work with each city to map out in detail what it would look like to build a new fiber-optic network there,' Google said. 'The most important part of this teamwork will be identifying what obstacles might pop up during network construction — and then working together to find the smoothest path around those obstacles. Some might be easy, some might take some creative thinking or a few months to iron out, and in some cases there might be such local complexities that we decide it's not the right time to build Google Fiber there.'"

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:39AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:39AM (#3167) Journal
    Google ToS [google.com] with what Thou shall not-s [google.com]

    Translation: like for /. Beta (is this becoming the new Godwin?), the subscribers are not contributors to the Internet, just consumers.

    • Don't run a personal blog on your own server at home, any reference to the brand of your daily groceries may be easily interpreted as commercial
    • Don't help others which are living under censorship by running a Tor bridge [torproject.org] (a Tor exit node is risky anyway in today's world), it will fall under "make the Services available to anyone outside the property"
    • even running bittorrent or any other p2p utility (Skype, for instance) may fall under "make the Services available to anyone outside the property"

    I'm not saying a bit of competition among the Internet carriers would hurt, but... Google won't ever be just a carrier.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +4  
       Interesting=3, Informative=2, Overrated=1, Total=6
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:44AM

    by dmc (188) on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:44AM (#3171)

    Obligatory link spam from my "Right To Serve" crusade that the FCC somehow completely ignored (thus far??)

    http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/google-ne utrality/ [wired.com]
    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/google-fiber -continues-awful-isp-tradition-banning-servers [eff.org]
    http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-dr aft-2k121024.pdf [cloudsession.com]
    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/01/198327/googl es-call-for-open-internet.html [mcclatchydc.com]
    http://crossies.com/IMAG0778.jpg [crossies.com]
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2013/10/15/goog le_fiber_to_allow_personal_servers/ [theregister.co.uk]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Ac t [wikipedia.org]
    "

            1. An agreement
            2. which unreasonably restrains competition
            3. and which affects interstate commerce

    "

  • (Score: 1) by Fluffeh on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:52AM

    by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:52AM (#3178) Journal

    I thought they back-pedalled on a lot of the "server" stuff when a number of people EFF included combed through the TOS and nit-picked. At that point, didn't they say something along the lines of "servers are okay, as long as they aren't basically a business" type thing?

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:10AM

      by dmc (188) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:10AM (#3191)

      "
      I thought they back-pedalled on a lot of the "server" stuff when a number of people EFF included combed through the TOS and nit-picked. At that point, didn't they say something along the lines of "servers are okay, as long as they aren't basically a business" type thing?
      "

      Yes, they backpedaled within 48 hours of this photograph appearing on the internet-
      (small children holding picket signs in Google saying "Google's Not Net Neutral" and "I Want A Server")
      http://crossies.com/IMAG0778.jpg [crossies.com]

      I am the one who led the crusade the prior year documented in my manifesto-

      http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-dr aft-2k121024.pdf [cloudsession.com]

      And today I've started to wonder if the backpedaled stance isn't vulnerable to a section 1 Sherman Antitrust lawsuit given the ToS against commercial servers seem in my mind to satisfy these 3 criteria-

                      1. An agreement
                      2. which unreasonably restrains competition
                      3. and which affects interstate commerce

      • (Score: 1) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:19AM

        by dmc (188) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:19AM (#3196)

        s/in Google/in Utah/

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by hankwang on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:22AM

        by hankwang (100) on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:22AM (#3262) Homepage

        "
        I thought they back-pedalled on a lot of the "server" stuff when a number of people EFF included ... business" type thing?
        "

        Hey dmc, there is the blockquote quasi-html tag! Quotation marks on a line by themselves look weird to me.

        • (Score: 0, Redundant) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:34AM

          by dmc (188) on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:34AM (#3267)

          hmmm ok I'll

          test a

          couple things out

          and now I even see the nice documentation below which perhaps could have educated me as to the somewhat more inconveniently long tag.

          Thanks.

        • (Score: 1) by evilviper on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:56AM

          by evilviper (1760) on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:56AM (#3331) Homepage Journal

          Hey dmc, there is the blockquote quasi-html tag! Quotation marks on a line by themselves look weird to me.

          When I'm mobile, I use regular quotes, too. Typing </blockquote> on a smart phone using Swype, into a large text box that doesn't nearly fit on the tiny screen, is a particularly tedious and painful exercise.

          If there were JS buttons above/below the text input box that inserted those tags, they'd save obscene amounts of time.

          --
          Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:53AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:53AM (#3210) Journal

      At that point, didn't they say something along the lines of "servers are okay, as long as they aren't basically a business" type thing?

      I'm not aware of what they said or didn't say, enough that their ToS says: no servers for commercial purposes but Ok for any personal ones.

      Except... isn't this an example/instance of an obstacle for individual entrepreneurship?
      Put together with others of the same, wouldn't be an explanation for the middle class crisis [google.com] in America?
      How one can expect the Americans to be self reliant if everybody tells them: yep, do everything you want for personal purposes, but if you want it for business, well... cough your money and two pints of blood with it... you are meant to be no more than consumer (or, in DICE's terms, an "audience". As captive as possible).

      Now, think a bit: what's the purpose of those incubators and hackatlons and what not? Why can't those activities take place at home, especially if one is unemployed and have 1Gbps link? Why should they be able to start something on their own, grow it from their server at home and move it somewhere else only if it worths it? 1Gbps is absolutely plenty for a startup, it may be absolutely more than enough for no matter how long even for a small eshop that sells 1000 penny blossoms/day (if you get my drift).
      Tell ye, let 5-10 years to pass and the thought of starting soylentnews will be so strange for the mind of newer generation, they'll never be able to think it.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 1) by hash14 on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:02AM

    by hash14 (1102) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:02AM (#3187)

    To make this comparison fair, don't many other ISPs offer similar terms?

    The minor difference here being that Google doesn't offer a business class service that would replace that, but perhaps those plans are in the future. Not that these sorts of terms worrisome anyways...

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:15AM

      by dmc (188) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:15AM (#3193)

      "
      To make this comparison fair, don't many other ISPs offer similar terms?
      "

      This is true, and Google used it in their compelled by the FCC defense of my Network Neutrality complaint against them. Unfortunately I've found the FCC to be impossible to pin down to an enforceable opinion when it comes to NN.

      The core of my view that this falls under NN is the following from paragraph 13 of FCC-10-201/NN
      (bold emphasis mine, note it does not say "anyone with a 'business class' connection, it says just _anyone_'. And no weasel words about 'via a third party like a cloud hosting provider')

      "
      Startups and small businesses benefit because the Internet's openness enables *anyone* connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else,(16) allowing even the smallest and most remotely located businesses to access national and global markets, and contribute to the economy through e-commerce(17)
      "

    • (Score: 1) by c0lo on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:22AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:22AM (#3198) Journal

      The minor difference here being that Google doesn't offer a business class service that would replace that, but perhaps those plans are in the future. Not that these sorts of terms worrisome anyways...

      Well... good luck with that.

      (I like your positive attitude... no, seriously, I like it.
      I'm a bit more pessimistic: without pressure, Google won't change anything... it's not in their business interest to do it. Yes, grabbing good slice of market because they afford to invest does make good business sense. However, allowing more liberty to that market slice... nope, is doesn't make sense)

      To make this comparison fair, don't many other ISPs offer similar terms?

      Here, downunder, all ISP-es that I used until now allow you to do anything that is legal with your connection (this includes running your server). Yes, I might pay a bit more (like I'm paying now for a dedicated IP address), but I'm still a home user and can run my own Web and stmp server.
      My (limited) experience with Europe shows the same in this regard.
      Why wouldn't US market want the same... it's not like being impossible?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1) by hash14 on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:55AM

        by hash14 (1102) on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:55AM (#3212)

        Idiotic typo on my part... I meant to say, "Not that these terms AREN'T worrisome" and definitely agree, they won't change their position until made to do so. These terms are likely a CYA so they can, in the future, choose to shut you down for something that they don't like. And then they may perhaps even steal your idea. Very worrisome indeed.

        The fact is, many of those internet startups (Google itself included, perhaps) were probably borne from a home server in someone's basement. When people talk about how Net Neutrality will preserve the innovation of the internet, they fail to point out how it applies to clauses like these as well. Sure, you can get a VPS on the cheap somewhere, but there's just something cool about having your own hardware, being able to upgrade it and tailor it to your needs in a way that a virtual machine somewhere thousands of miles away never could.... This of course, the buearocrats will never understand or care about. Sad.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by dmc on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:19AM

          by dmc (188) on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:19AM (#3222)

          "
          The fact is, many of those internet startups (Google itself included, perhaps) were probably borne from a home server in someone's basement. When people talk about how Net Neutrality will preserve the innovation of the internet, they fail to point out how it applies to clauses like these as well. Sure, you can get a VPS on the cheap somewhere, but there's just something cool about having your own hardware, being able to upgrade it and tailor it to your needs in a way that a virtual machine somewhere thousands of miles away never could.... This of course, the buearocrats will never understand or care about. Sad.
          "

          You may find this post from an AC on slashdot interesting-
          "
          http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3106555&cid=41 288357 [slashdot.org] (quoted entirely here-)

          Re:EVIL: No Server Hosting Allowed (Score:5, Interesting)
          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 10, 2012 @10:46AM (#41288357)

          Posting anonymously for reasons that will be obvious.

          Larry Page is really annoyed by the "no servers" clause. In an internal weekly all-hands meeting he repeatedly needled Patrick Pichette about the limitation, and pointedly reminded him that the only reason Google was able to get off the ground was because Page and Brin could use Stanford's high-speed Internet connection for free. Page wants to see great garage startups being enabled by cheap access to truly high-speed Internet. Pichette defended it saying they had no intention of trying to enforce it in general, but that it had to be there in case of serious abuse, like someone setting up a large-scale data center.

          I don't think anyone really has to worry about running servers on their residential Google Fiber, as long as they're not doing anything crazy. Then again it's always possible that Page will change his mind or that the lawyers will take over the company, and the ToS is what it is. If I had Google Fiber I'd run my home server just as I do on my Comcast connection, but I'd also be prepared to look for other options if my provider complained.
          "