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I had meant to comment earlier on the FT's front page story last week on: "Google resolve crumbles on 'cookies' pledge."

The intro sentence says it all:

• "Google has failed to make any headway in dealing with one of the most controversial issues of online privacy, despite promising a year ago that it would take the lead in tackling the problem."

I can't say I am surprised -- as the old adage goes, a leopard doesn't change its spots.

• We now know more about two things concerning Google:
  • That Privacy International, a leading privacy watchdog in the world, was very much on the mark in ranking Google worst in the world on Privacy in its privacy rankings and also describing Google as having an "entrenched hostility to privacy."
  • Google's public committments/word (albeit non-binding) during a governmental proceeding aren't worth much.
    • Google is unwisely backtracking on something very important to users and government officials.
    • They thumb their noses at everyone else's privacy at their own peril... 

Kudos to Timothy Lee of Cato, for his post in Techdirt: "Changing the Internet's architecture isn't so easy." 

Mr. Lee challenged Professor Lessig's assertion at the Stanford FCC hearing that network owners have the power to change the Internet's architecture.

Why his insightful analysis is so devastating to Professor Lessig's core assertion underlying the need for net neutrality legislation is that it exposes some "inconvenient truths" about the reality of trying to change the Internet's architecture:

• First, Mr. Lee brilliantly points out that to control which devices got what content like Professor Lessig posits, would require instituting some type of handshake protocol that would be extremely difficult to get adopted by device manufacturers.
• Second, he points out how difficult it has been to change the Internet's architecture to IPv6, something there is a lot of consensus around to do.
• Third, he explains that these changes in architecture Lessig posits would be extremely expensive and take a long time.

I recommend you read his full post, it's brief, well-reasoned and fresh.  

Sometimes an analysis is so outstanding, all you can say is "Read it!"

Anyone who considers themselves religious should read Red State's illuminating and shocking post, which documents an anti-Christian discriminatory bias by Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig and his extremely close ally -- Google.

• "Obama and Google's mutual advisor: Jesus is gay; wears a diaper and gets run over."

WARNING: Christians will find the one-minute-fifty-second video that Mr. Lessig shows to a laughing Google audience, sacrilegious, offensive, and disturbing.  

National Public Radio's All Things Considered" did a great 5 minute segment on: "Some Libraries Shun Google in Book Battle."

The story is set up as who should control the world's future virtual libraries as libraries and Google rush to digitize the world's books?

• Several public libraries object to Google digitizing all their books and are doing it themselves.
• They worry about a "single corporate entity" having so much power over the world's information.
• If the old adage is true, that information is power, there is reason to worry.

I note this story because these libraries are a spontaneous and very real grass roots response to Google's megalomaniacal mission: to organize the world's information and make it universally available and useful."

• These public library advocates worried out loud about how much more effective censorship could be if "a single corporate entity" controlled the world's main library and how would they respond to political pressure to ban a book or an author?
  • This is a relavant concern because Google has censored search results in China, Turkey and Thailand to name a few known instances. 

Google should take note. Here is a grass roots rebellion brewing from their left flank, which looks un-willing to be bought off by Google to go away. 

Clearly the market badly under-estimated Google's strength and resilience in a slowing economy given the ~17% leap in Google's stock price in after hours trading.  

• Google's notorious lack of openness with investors helped make the market inefficiently, way-over-cautious.

42% revenue growth for an $18b a year company is amazing.

• It is also amazing for there to be a business of this size and global scope that strongly asserts to have a business model that is unaffected by the turmoil in the macro-economy.
• It certainly suggests some market power and network effects at work here, because this strong performance and guidance on the effect of the macro-economy -- is not "normal."

What I find most interesting is I don't think that the market yet understands what a growth kicker the DoubleClick acquisition will be for Google going forward. Google was coy about it and did not connect-the-dots for investors -- that they clearly see.

Google co-founder Sergy Brin, one of Google's most avid net neutrality proponents, candidly admitted today in Google's 1Q08 earnings call with investors, that Google "improved" its international search quality by "demoting non-country search results" on Google's improved country home pages.

This is interesting for a few reasons.

Self-appointed Information Commons messiah Larry Lessig and his Free Press acolyte Ben Scott, advance a slew of "beliefs" that they assiduously proselytize wherever they can gather an audience.

FreePress' antagonistic and borderline hysterical response to the legitimate consumer-friendly progress made in the Comcast-Pando agreement to lead a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" shows FreePress' and the net neutrality movement's true colors and suggests that they are not interested in really advancing their stated goals, but in scoring political points and advancing their broader political agenda. They don't seem interested in solutions, because it appears that they are in the business creating and grandstanding about problems. 

Amazing that FreePress and SaveTheInternet had nothing good to say about this breakthrough agreement that finds common ground to start working towards what FreePress et al say they care about. Any reasonable person can see their are positive developments here and progress being made. See my post on this agreement highlighting its significance.

• If Net neutrality proponents were genuinely interested in achieving or making progress towards their stated goals, they would have found something ositive to say about the clear progress the agreement made towards their stated goals and not had a knee jerk ad hominem attack that impugned the integrity of Comcast and Pando Networks.

As I said in my post, no good deed goes unpunished.

Seems like another observer agrees with this take:

Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media, Britain’s second-largest broadband provider, “called the principle of network neutrality—all content being delivered equally to all users—"a load of bollocks" per eWeek’s article: “Virgin Media may ignore network neutrality.”

• “Berkett said Virgin is considering a fee-based system for content providers wishing to have their traffic moved faster than others.”

After looking up the definition of “bollocks,” it is clear that his comments colorfully echo some of the same sentiments in America that prompted Google to work with Moveon.org to organize SaveTheInternet and ItsOurNet (the predecessor to the Open Internet Coalition) and manufacture the net neutrality issue out of whole cloth.

The comments and the article are a powerful reminder of the fantasy corporate welfare economics of net neutrality, where users are expected to bear all the costs of video distribution for companies like Google and Amazon.