Democrats & Liberals Archives

We've been Googled!

I remember when Google was one site among many that I accessed when I wanted to find something on the Internet. Slowly but surely, Google became my preferred site and the preferred site of almost everyone because it had an outstanding search engine. Google became a verb, as in “Google it” and “I googled the facts.” It pains me to say that google now means something radically different: “double-cross.” Yes, we’ve been googled!

Google was the champion of net neutrality, the idea that each member of the Internet community should have equal access to the riches of the Internet as any other member, that there would not be different tiers for different classes of users. Google proclaimed this long ago because it wanted flexibility in its distribution of content, as opposed to Verizon and Comcast who favored separate user tiers in order to extract as much money as possible from control of the communication pipes.

However, as Google got bigger and bigger, it began to think about maintaining its bigness and further growing its bigness and its power. The communication companies were eager to get rid of net neutrality. If Google could make a deal for special treatment, Google would become a lot more powerful. More than that, potential competitors would have a tough time providing Google with competition. So, Google, the former champion of net neutrality, made a deal with Verizon, which spells the death knell for net neutrality:

On Monday, Google is expected to announce a deal with Verizon that would end net neutrality and allow telecom companies to slow down particular websites and charge fees similar to cable for access to certain sites on mobile devices. (There is increasingly little difference between mobile and stationary devices.) Verizon, under the agreement being negotiated, could crush blogs, companies or political candidates by slowing down their sites.

"The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it," responded Josh Silver, president of Free Press, an advocate of net neutrality.

This is unfortunate. The Internet is different from all other media ever invented before because it enables ordinary people - you and me - to talk to each other, to work with each other, to play with each other, to influence each other, to get more involved in literature, politics, culture, different peoples, different countries, different religions. The Internet is an instrument for building democracy, inventing better living conditions, and for making the world more liveable and more peaceful.

The Internet is a boon to the little guy. Net neutrality is the means for keeping it so. Here's the way Senator Al Franken puts it:

If we don't protect net neutrality now, how long do you think it will take before Comcast/NBC/Universal, or Verizon/CBS/Viacom, or AT&T/ABC/DirectTV, or BP/Halliburton/Wal-Mart/Fox/Domino's Pizza starts favoring its content over everyone else's? How long do you think it will take before the Fox News website loads five times faster than Daily Kos? If the Internet -- the tool that allowed this community to come together and become a potent political force -- is under the control of corporate elites, then the netroots can't exist. The progressive movement can't exist. Democracy as we know it can't exist.

We've been googled! You can't depend upon the word of a huge corporation. Google's motto is "Don't do evil." This is evil.

We've been googled! Google is claiming it is still for net neutrality. Don't believe it. These corporate monsters distort the meaning of words in order to screw us.

We've been googled! However, this is only a deal between 2 corporations. It's up to the FCC to bless it. It may very well do this, unless you and I complain.