Aug 10
12
Last week, a breathless and rather confusing story appeared in the stating Google and Verizon were about to sign a deal which would, in effect, gut the spirit of Net Neutrality. Several web-journalists, bloggers and activists added their voices in virtual unanimous condemnation of what we believed Google and Verizon were proposing. Within 48-hours, were denying the story as vigorously as the New York Times was defending it. Something potentially disruptive is clearly brewing between the Web’s most powerful publisher and a company that owns a significant portion of America’s data delivery system but we don’t really know exactly what it is.
Earlier this week, Google and Verizon held a joint conference call news conference () and released a joint statement outlining the scope of a “” the two companies have reached. This agreement was forged during but outside of an ongoing series of meetings regarding Net Neutrality convened by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski earlier this year.
The functioning of the Internet is at a crossroads with ever increasing costs being borne by data delivery providers matching the ever increasing file sizes their fiber networks deliver. As with the entertainment industry revenue models for data delivery providers were thought out long before the evolution of the Web. The data delivery providers see a solution in charging extra for premium transmission. The web development community however, sees the situation a little differently.
When the World Wide Web was opened to the public in the early 1990’s, a very loose set of academic traditions formed the kernel for general rules of conduct. For instance, information must be free to move, to morph and to be transformed into something more refined and better. In a truly intellectual setting, all ideas are considered equally worthy of public consideration. While one might not wish to spend their own time considering certain ideas, it is widely considered anathematic for an academic body to block, censor or otherwise deny public consideration of other people’s ideas.
The same can be said for data. All legal data must be considered and treated as equal on the Web. That’s one of the basic tenants of Network Neutrality. For the most part, all legal content has, by tradition and agreement, been treated equally by data transmission providers. While there are a number of specific instances where data transmission providers have not respected this ideal, for two decades the Web has provided the freest and most effective publishing medium in human history.
Proponents of Net Neutrality, unfortunately, do not have answers to the vexing questions of costs facing the ISPs. They do however have an important point that transcends basic cost/benefit statements. The benefits of an open Internet far outweigh the costs currently borne by service providers. Try for a moment to imagine what unemployment figures would be like without a free and open Internet. Try for a moment to imagine what your own life would be like without the Internet as we know it today.
If the framework agreement Google and Verizon have come up with comes to fruition, the Internet as we know it today might just wither and die away. Google is looking far beyond the Internet as we know it and Verizon wants to take it there.
We have known the World Wide Web and its delivery systems had to change for some time now. Mobile computing devices are becoming more powerful and prevalent. Much of what Google has been doing for the past year points to the company putting extraordinary energy into mobile to the point of developing its own mobile operating system, Android and altering its algorithms to favor mobile friendly documents.
Google is doubling down on mobile and Verizon is preparing to redouble its energies to have mobile data delivery considered separate and unique from terrestrial Internet data delivery. The two companies are prepared to go as far as developing a new alternative to the terrestrial Internet. Using the phrase, “additional differentiated online services”, Google and Verizon are proposing to build a “fast-lane” pipeline to run alongside the World Wide Web. It would by necessity be TCP/IP based and also by necessity use some of the same lines being used to deliver data today but, according to the framework agreement as I vaguely understand it, the delivery system wouldn’t be the same as the Web. It will certainly be faster.
When does the Web stop being the Web? The same technologies are used with the exception of those stretching the “last mile”. The same protocols will be used as packet delivery is the only efficient way to allow so many signals to cross paths at the same time. The product viewed by the consumer will likely look, feel and act very much like a traditional web document or object does today. According to Google and Verizon, the Web ceases being the Web when we stop calling it the Web, and therein lays the crux of the conundrum.
The moment the premium content is delivered across a premium network to premium subscribers is the moment the free web dies. That free web, while actually quite expensive, provides the foundation of extraordinary innovation, wealth creation and intellectual progress. Someone has to pay for its maintenance, improvement and extension but creating a parallel universe to circumvent Net Neutrality traditions (or legislation) is an enormous mistake.
We might be witnessing the birth of a tiered Internet where you the consumer and we the content creators are asked to pay more for the right to consume and create. Critical community components such as WebmasterRadio.FM or SMX Webcast training sessions might be forced to pay more to stream content at a functional bit-rate. Packet sniffers might decide the data you’re downloading should be degraded. Your SKYPE client might not work as well as it had in the past.
The Internet is the last free frontier on Earth where everyone starts on truly even playing field. It is a place where true capitalism can be practiced without the stifling interference of ham-fisted corporate interests and honest competition breeds stronger winners and well lessoned losers.
Google and Verizon appear to be acting like ham-fisted corporate scallywags. They need to re-explain and allow the web-community to help them clarify their plans. While I honor their right to innovate as they see fit, I also recognize the tsunami of ill flavored change their current plans might unleash could have the harshest effects on Internet entrepreneurialism. The web is an economic ecosystem. You are the web community. This is your environment. Please research this issue further and make your opinion known.
Jim Hedger
Jim Hedger is an organic SEO and digital marketing specialist. Jim has been involved in the online marketing industry since 1998 and a SEO since 1999. Best known as a broadcaster, interviewer, content writer and search industry commentator, Jim is a frequent conference speaker and organizer. He hosts the search focused radio show Webcology on WebmasterRadio.FM and is a WebmasterRadio.FM conference interviewer. Jim brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, passion and creative thinking to each project. Preferring a teamwork approach, Jim strives to inform and train his clients and their staff to run and maintain their own search and social media efforts.
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