Google Denies 'Devil's Pact' With Verizon on Tiered Services

Everyone can calm down, at least for now. Google says that the talk is all bunk. On Twitter, it released a statement that the New York Times article was all wrong and that it remains committed to an open Internet. Verizon, too, now says on its policy blog that the Times article regarding conversations with Google is mistaken. "Our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect."

Article:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/google-and-verizons-net-neutrality-fli...

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But despite the denials to sooth the public as mentioned in the above article the truth is...........

LAKE TAHOE, CALIF.: Google CEO Eric Schmidt would not go into specifics, but he told reporters at the Techonomy conference that the technology giant’s talks with Verizon were about bridging the gap between absolute positions on net neutrality.

Network neutrality is the principle that all data should be treated equally by ISPs and broadband service providers. Some providers argue that they should have the right to prioritize data to improve service, by slowing some video or VoIP services, for instance, or by pushing some data more quickly if content creators are willing to underwrite the speed boost.

According to Ina Fried’s “Beyond Binary” blog on C|NET, Schmidt said that while he believes content should be treated in a neutral manner by network providers, there would be room to prioritize types of content, for example routing VoIP traffic ahead of video content.

Article: http://www.televisionbroadcast.com/article/104422

[At the bottom of this article, the denial is repeated.]

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FCC Calls Off Net Neutrality Talks

WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission officials called off closed-door talks with lobbyists aimed at reaching a compromise on new rules to prevent Internet traffic from being blocked or slowed, saying they couldn't reach a workable compromise.

FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus, in a statement, said the effort "has been productive on several fronts, but has not generated a robust framework to preserve the openness and freedom of the Internet." He added, "all options remain on the table as we continue to seek broad input on this vital issue."

The agency yanked the plug on the private negotiations a day after news broke that Verizon Communications Inc. and Google Inc. had reached a separate agreement which would allow the phone giant to prioritize some broadband traffic. The companies have not announced the agreement yet.

Article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870374890457541163253088655...

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Verizon and Google are reportedly close to an agreement that meets somewhere in the middle: Verizon would not favor certain types of content over others on its FiOS wireline broadband network. However, those restrictions would not apply to its Verizon Wireless mobile network, which has more significant bandwidth constraints.

Neither company would comment officially on their talks, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt hinted Wednesday at what the agreement would likely entail at the Techonomy conference in Tahoe, Calif.

"I want to be clear what we mean by Net neutrality: What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another," Schmidt said. "But it's okay to discriminate across different types, so you could prioritize voice over video, and there is general agreement with Verizon and Google on that issue."

Article:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_net_neutrality...

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The search engines are already giving elite media top billing. The search engines are already becoming major content providers to keep eyes on their ads longer while the rest of the internet (except for certain social networks) become more marginalized.

In the early days there was plenty of competition with the ISP's and you wouldn't have had the ISP's even thinking about some of the shit they now consider. In the old days when there was competition, if Andrew Cuomo had told the ISP's to stop carrying newsgroups the majority of the ISP's would have told Andrew Cuomo to go fuck himself. But without the competition the response of the ISP's was oh good, we have an excuse to provide our customers with less service. There was a race to kiss Andrew Cuomo's ass as they reduced service without reducing fees.

Beyond the Google/Verizon talk rumor, there are plenty of reports where the phone companies are discussing how far they can go to try to rip their customers and businesses off. They basically think their customers and the businesses will roll over and play dead while getting robbed.

Because of corruption in the industry from the phone company monopolies to the search engine monopolies, the internet may face what the corrupt bank and housing sector faced. At some point the people may just say fuck this. "I will go live under a bridge before I continue working my ass off to support these crooks."