[ NNSquad ] Re: FCC paths to Internet network management? (from IP)

[Kee Hinckley <nazgul@somewhere.com>]

On Mar 1, 2008, at 12:38 AM, Brett Glass wrote:
> Secondly, Google is not in the business of harassing or antagonizing  
> ISPs and would be ill advised to do so. ISPs are their customers and  
> their way of reaching the rest of the world. Google -- which wants  
> to avoid becoming an ISP itself -- needs them as allies.

That's a very odd statement. If Google is truly a "customer", then  
presumably you can terminate your contract with them.  How long would  
an ISP survive that didn't allow access to Google?

Your customers are end-users.  The services you provide are determined  
by what your end-users want.  I know that ISPs would very much like to  
make companies like Google their customers.  After all, Google is less  
price sensitive.  You'd have much more leverage with them.  The  
customer support costs are much lower.  The margins are much higher.   
But wishing it doesn't make it so.

Also, you responded to that post by talking about P2P.  But what Barry  
Gold said was:

> Their pages are copyright (at least, the logos and layout are, and I  
> suspect a compilation copyright would apply to the information).   
> Read up on "derivative works".

Unless I screwed up on my threading, he's talking about modifying web  
pages and adding things to them.  That is *most* definitely something  
that Google would sue about.  In fact, for those with short memories,  
this isn't the first time it has happened. There used to be a browser  
plugin that would let people "mark up" web pages so that everyone  
could see the mark ups.  There were a lot of very unhappy web sites,  
and I think law suits may even have been involved.  And that was far  
tamer (not to mention voluntary) than slapping advertising (which will  
measurably reduce Google's income) on a page stream.