Now an ISP, Google not so hot on net neutrality
[Via Boing Boing]
In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don’t give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections, and that the Google Fiber network is perfectly within its rights to prohibit customers from attaching the legal devices of their choice to its network.
[More]
In Kansas City, Google provides high speed Internet access. But its terms of service prevent ANY server to be attached.
Your Google Fiber account is for your use and the reasonable use of your guests. Unless you have a written agreement with Google Fiber permitting you do so, you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection,…
This seems overly restrictive. Any computer can act as a server. I’ve had web servers at home. If you have a ‘nanny cam’ to watch the kids, you are using a server. If you control the lights or temperature over the intetrnet, that is a server using the Internet connection.
But what is really interesting is Google’s flip on net neutrality.issue. When it was the one using the Internet pipes, it was all for net neutrality. Now that it provides the pipe it has changed its views.
It was for things like Slingboxes run on other corporation’s pipes but which are now outlawed on its own pipes.
But, it turns out that Google’s real net neutrality policy is that big corporate services like YouTube and Facebook shouldn’t get throttled or banned by evil ISPs like Verizon, but it’s perfectly fine for Google to control what devices citizens can use in their homes.
This is not really unexpected behavior of a corporation. But Google was supposed to be different.
A Man With A Ph.D. 