Fraud

Tim Wu, the "father of net neutrality" because he made up the term a few years back, was surprisingly candid in a CNET article that: "the whole net neutrality issue is really about a power struggle."

• Well we now know net neutrality is not about:
  • A supposedly longstanding non-discrimination "principle" of the Internet;
  • all bits being equal; or
  • freedom of speech.
• It's about "power."
  • We knew it all along. 
    • It's really about the "power struggle" over corporate welfare for the dotcom billionaires at Google and eBay who want the consumer to subsidize their piggish bandwith demands in order to maintain their 90% gross profit margins.  

I also found another candid quote by the Moveon.org/FreePress folks that also tells us what they are up to:

Isn't it illuminating that eBay, the online auction monopoly with 95% market share per Jupiter Research, and the owner of Skype that is lobbying hard for regulation and legislation to force the "unlocking of phones" and mandate net neutrality regulation -- is so uncooperative with law enforcement trying to crack down on organized theft?

• Could it be that calling for others to be "open" is just code, cover and justification for stealing other's property or property rights?

Reuters reported last week: "U.S. retailers want online sellers to fight theft." 

•  "U.S. retailers and police called on Congress on Thursday to require online auction sites such as eBay to post the serial numbers of items for sale to help crack down on gangs of professional shoplifters." 

• ""Operators of sites such as eBay have historically failed to provide any meaningful information to retail investigators," said Karl Langhorst, director of loss prevention for Randall's and Tom Thumb stores, a division of Safeway Inc.""

Seems like more hypocrisy and situational ethics from eBay, where they seek corporate welfare from government, while not cooperating fully with law enforcement to fight "organized theft."

• Maybe there is "Honor among thieves."

The plot thickens. Robert Cox of The Examiner has produced another must-read piece uncovering much more detail of the closeness of the Google-Moveon.org relationship: "New questions raised on Google, Moveon.org relationship."

• The piece documents a detailed timeline of the infamous Moveon.org New York Times' General Betray-us? advertisement and then Google's subsequent efforts to help and protect Moveon.org from anti-Moveon.org advertisements on Google. 

What's new and fresh in this piece is the very detailed timeline that connects-the-dots of all of the coverage to assemble a compelling chonology that shows how Google did not follow its own policies and procedures, or even trademark law and practice, in order to censor other's free speech that would be critical of their close political ally Moveon.org.

Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for a highly-illuminating page-one story: "Google under fire over controversial site" because it provides a rare window into the soul of the company who's purported company's motto is "Don't be evil." 

At its core, Google is a "math cult" of mathematicians/computer scientists whose core belief is that most any problem can eventually be solved by one of Google's cutting-edge computer algorithms. 

• Google algorithmic prowess and focus has built the world's best search engine algorithm, with 400 plus variables, and it has also built the world's best online-advertising algorithm business, producing revenue growth twice that of its industry.
• Moreover, Google co-founder Sergy Brin has said the "perfect search engine would be like the mind of God."

A big theme I have written about with Google is that it has a culture of "innovation without permission" which I have translated to mean there are few internal controls or little adult or human supervision at Google.

The Wall Street Journal article provides an outstanding case study of this point -- that Google cares little about the non-algorithmic aspects of technology and/or business.

Art Brodsky's of Public Knowledge recently posted his long defense of Moveon.org and Google for their blocking the free speech of U.S. Senator Susan Collins.

• Brodsky claims that Moveon.org has called off its trademark protection dogs and is now allowing Google to place anti-Moveon.org ads now that they blocked last week at Moveon.org's urging.
  • How skulkingly magnanimous of them!

What appears to be missing from this sleight-of-hand mea culpa, is Google/Moveon.org or both of them:

• admitting they made an egregious mistake in conspiring to block the free speech of a U.S. Senate candidate;
• taking full responsibility for the Internet free speech censorship;
• pledging it won't happen again; and
• explaining that they have taken sufficient actions (policy changes) so it won't reoccur.

I doubt a congressional panel, the press or the blogosphere will drop this issue just because one of Google's Poodles organizations, Public Knowledge, posted a preemptive defense on the Huffington Post to try and frame this issue before their "progressive" base got a whif of their week-old anti-free speech droppings.

Mr. Brodsky also claims that Google and Moveon.org have never limited free speech before.

Listening to Google's General Counsel testify at the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the Google-DoubleClick merger  which I also testified at, one would think everyone loves Google and all was just "teddie bears and rainbows" for consumers in Googleland.

Google just can't seem to get on the right side of copyright law -- or the law in general for that matter.

• Google's MySpace partner, News Corp clearly doesn't believe Google is doing enough to protect copyrights. 
• Peter Chernin, President of News Corp., in an interview with the Financial Times yesterday, chided Google that ""they could do a better job" at preventing illegally copied video from appearing on its YouTube site."
  • FT asks: "Do they have the technology to do it?"
  • Chernin: "It's pretty safe to say that they have the technology available, that if we [MySpace] have the technology available, a) it's publicly available, and b) I haven't yet heard a lot about Google being technologically constrained."

The point here is that Google clearly has the wherewithal to not violate copyright, but they are making a business decision that it is better or more profitable for Google to disrespect copyright law rather than to respect copyright law.

Google's copyright kleptomania just can't stay out of the news for long. Per the AP/San Jose Mercury News last week:

• "In letters sent to several lawmakers Wednesday, the National Legal and Policy Center excoriated Google for allowing its video-hosting service to become an online theater for showing and promoting illegally copied movies."

• "The nonprofit group, which says it has no financial ties to the movie industry..."

• "The grievances made to Congress focused exclusively on content found on Google's Web site rather than the company's more popular YouTube subsidiary that is being sued by Viacom Inc. for alleged copyright infringement."

Open Left, a close ally of Moveon.org, is unabashedly bragging about how it has successfully manipulated Google search results, with the intent to manipulate the Presidential general election, with its "Google-bombing" campaign of Republican Rudy Guliani.

• See "GoogleBomb Rudy Guliani Update."

This is far from the first time Google has enabled "Google-bombing".

Richard Waters of the FT produced a very insightful and newsy article on how Google reportedly passed on buying DoubleClick two years earlier over internal concerns about how that alignment of businesses could clash with Google's famed "don't be evil' highmindedness.

• It's a must read article for Googlephiles.

My big takeaway from this article was an undercurrent of Google's struggle over internal controls to ensure Google's "ethics" are carried out in practice.