Google Wants To Administer the First White Spaces 112
aabelro writes "Google proposes to the FCC to become the administrator of a White Spaces Database containing geo-location information about devices using the free channels in the radio spectrum."
Hmmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
The question you have to ask yourself is "Which is the greater evil?"
The money grubbing corporate types at Google or the lobbyist driven bureaucrats in Government?
Since I'm on a "Just say NO! to Google" jihad, I'd have to give it to the paper shufflers in Government...
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
An international boycott of Google could both change its plans quickly and perhaps put it out of business.
And such a thing actually happens, how often?
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
We have much more of an ability to make change through the democratic process than we do by trying to scream at/boycott a corporation until we get what we want.
Not that most people know enough about what is going on in the world to change their vote based on something technology related like this, but that'll probably change as more old people die. We have a much better chance of getting people to go out and vote than we do with getting enough people to boycott a corporation.
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dont confuse the administrator of the database with the governor of the data therein. Google is just proposing to provide the technical solution, not decide the policies that get someone on the list.
And if Google gets this, the goverment will certainly write into their charter limits on what and when they can charge.
I just dont see an issue here.
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is government control necessarily "evil"? It's function* is to control social institutions and infrastructure that is otherwise unprofitable to run or should not be run in a for-profit manner. Furthermore, corporations come and go, as do their agendas. Would you want AT&T to be in charge of all IP addresses that were unused back in the 70s when it was the dominant player in telecommunications? In 20 years Google will (hopefully) be just another once-were-innovators.
If this same discussion were happening 10 years ago, the big name putting up their hand to administer it, and would probably have little competition, would be Microsoft. Who'd want that? Google will one day be what Microsoft is today; hated, feared and opposed by pretty much everyone, and all the Google fanboys today will claim then that they never really liked Google the way ex-MS lovers now claim they never liked MS.
Corporations should *never* be given permanent power over social infrastructure. I never understood the willingness of the US population to give fundamentally transient organizations power over social infrastructure. Imagine if SCO actually *did* have control over anything important in the Unix world?
Privatization is *not* the panacea that Americans hold it to be.
(Oh, and I know you're not saying it is, I'm agreeing with and taking further your point.)
* Current implementation of "government" is not what I'm talking about, I'm talking philosophically.
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
In 20 years Google will (hopefully) be just another once-were-innovators.
Really? I hope in 20 years Google is still innovating. While I realize there is a cycle to companies growing and dying (especially as new competitors come to the market), I do not wish for a company to become Just Another Big Company(TM).
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:1, Insightful)
Anyone as rabidly anti-government as you obviously are has no concept of public goods.
So tell me, Mr. I Hate Anything That Has The Faintest Whiff Of Socialism, how would, in a fully privatized world, roads and streetlights be constructed? Would you prefer a world where you had to put a coin into every streetlight as you passed it or have toll gantries every time you turned a corner onto a new road? Or do you like your "pay taxes once, access for all regardless of use" model? Because, government tax dollars spent on roads is stinky, slimy socialism. Yuck.
Re:the answer is (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know if google type are clean as angels, but at least with google you know up front that they are for profit. With the government, they say they are not for profit when they are all out to make a buck (or a few million) for themselves.
Re:the answer is (Score:1, Insightful)
Google is the worst kind of corporate evil around today. To suggest they are an angel is beyond naive.
Ha, nice theory (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been paying attention to US politics since Eisenhower/JFK transition years and I have yet to see this asshat voting out theory turn to practice. What happens is one group of asshats replaces another one. We have two groups of asshats who swap off every other election or so, but the continuation is corrupt government, whistleblowers or potential whistleblowers in government bureaucracy are always afraid of repercussions in their jobs (or worse...). Both those government hijacking groups lobby hard and perpetually to scare the population into "not wasting their vote" on any alternative to the asshat nominee, to insure only asshats get voted for. It is a remarkable effective and simple technique in keeping the asshat party, the one with two wings, in power.
So even if you decide to "run for office yourself" to help clean things up, you are lucky to make it past real local elections, county or above, you toe the asshat party line or ..nothing. You most likely won't get elected, big fat waste of time, and if you do get elected, you are in peril of either being marginalized, or heck, they off people man. The dual wing corrupt asshat "shadow government" just plain do not like honest people who aren't bribed or blackmailed off. Stuff happens to those folks, or they just get completely ignored, one or the other.
The closest we have come to breaking this power sharing corrupt criminal cartel and kleptocracy is the reform party efforts, but they scared the two wing asshat party so much that they decided that they "wouldn't allow" anything *but* asshats on the stage at the big national debates, and the asshat controlled media went along with that. Pretty much knocked the stuffing out of any third party/alternative vote efforts.
The League of Women Voters, to their credit, dropped their sponsorship of the asshat national debates at that time. Which should have been a major clue to the electorate..but around 97% or so now have caved in and decided to "not waste their vote" and have kept electing asshat criminals right along since then. And the asshats make damn sure government is run as a for profit bribery and influence and jobs peddling organization.
Any real mavericks, perhaps with new ideas or..gasp..not corrupt, really honest people, get marginalized and demonized immediately in the controlled asshat press, labeled as "fringe", or they just get completely ignored.
So..my conclusion is..there's about no diff anymore if some corporation or alleged government runs things, the asshats are in charge in both areas, and its the same people with revolving door government to global corporation jobs, etc, where just about everything at the decision making level is done with behind the scenes payoffs and bribes, etc, and our form of government should more fairly and accurately be labeled as a Corporatocracy [wikipedia.org].
It is not as bad as it could get yet, obviously there are some other rather extreme heinously run nations that are even more despotic and corrupt, but this has been the trend and direction, heading towards that total despotism, as long as I have been paying attention.
What is sad and funny at the same time is sitting in the middle, having to shift all around all the time so as not to catch any asshat cooties, and watching both asshat extremes of the vigorous "true believers" types point fingers at each other across some fairy tale imaginary dividing line while they chant in unison "It's all your fault!! If only all of OUR asshats where in charge, things would be just so much bettah!".
Damn funny really.
What this has to do with Google and whitespaces and spectrum, etc I can't say in exact terms, but I am fairly confident to predict that in general terms, which ever policy that will go to ship the most amount of cash into the fewest amount of hands will eventually turn out to be "the" policy or regulation, etc. What asshat spokesmodel they slap in front of that will be mostly irrelevant.
Re:the answer is (Score:2, Insightful)
If you use sites that advertise through them you *are* getting something in return though.
Anywhere you go that google tracks you, they are paying someone for the privilege to track you, that someone provides you a service with that money.
Evil is as Evil does. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is simply a way to monetize something that was intended to be free.
Free or not, where there is a demand, the market will create itself and Google plans on being there first. I RTFA and it seems to me that they are just trying to "grade" a whitespace based on its physical location and the devices at that location. So and so coordinates, with yada-yada using it. Check. The database is simply to let those users know who is who, and where.
The next step would be, in my mind, to strangle the supply of whitespace by camping as many geo-locations as possible.
(wow, that actually sounds like fun...Pitch a tent and roast marshmallows!)
My first impulse(were I without a conscience) would be to lease/mount a transmitter on every cell tower out there, specifically to fill whitespace. It could simply broadcast old Jimmy Swaggart reruns or simply white-noise. Just keep it filled to claim priority. After all, the idea is to keep people from interfering with ANY other transmissions...even if it is someone simply camping the whitespace there. This is basically a Land-Rush on the whitespace, and the lawyers think that mapping it all will give them something to work with...some sort of claim of rights to that whitespace.
When you have most of it camped, you are then in a position to start making deals.
Market created.
The problem is eventually that "non-existent" market will drive use to the point it actually WOULD interfere with adjacent frequencies...exactly what was trying to be prevented by the creation of whitespaces.
Back to square one with Google making truckloads of cash in the process.
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are right. Acquiring other companies is not very innovative - at least not in the technological sense. My question to you is - what's the problem with it?
You only have to look around a little bit to see that these smaller "competitors" are much more easily able to innovate. They have the flexibility and the "nothing to lose" mentality that makes that a possibility. In addition, you make it sound like buying up a smaller company (I dislike your word "competitors") is a bad thing. I'm pretty sure nobody strong armed those companies into selling to Google. The owners/founders of those companies were HAPPY to sell to Google because (surprise, surprise) THEY MADE MONEY.
Of course, this is not to say I condone "strong arm" buying tactics. But, from my readings, I haven't seen Google responsible for anything like that. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
In addition, while some of these companies had a fairly decent user base (though, definitely not all), being bought up by a larger company means you now get brand recognition, you get moved to the forefront of your industry, etc. I personally had not heard of Grand Central until Google's purchase of them and the release of Google Voice. Same with a number of other companies.
Whenever anybody bashes Google, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, or any other big company for buying up smaller companies, I just shake my head, because that is all part of doing business. Everybody who is in business, ultimately, is in it to make a profit. The little guy, the big guy, the individual - everybody wants to make money and see their business succeed. That's not A Bad Thing(TM).