Why Google makes the perfect ISP

> "Sure Google pursues its own commercial goals but in the end it benefits the customer as well."

Sometimes. And with no guarantee that such interests will align in the future. Their flip on Net Neutrality is all the warning and reminder consumers should need, to temper their optimism with due caution.

The problem is when google starts to target advertising based on your entire online life. For example, currently, google can't really see what you're unloading to dropbox or iCloud or emails you receive (outside of Gmail.) But if they're the ISP, they can start to target advertising based on the documents you upload or files you upload. The information they could collect would be mind-blowing. And you just know that part of their TOS will be "we can do whatever we want with your information."

I don't know if I want one company effectively owning the internet history of every user. If google is able to undercut other providers and they become the only high-quality game in town, then most users will have little choice but to submit to the google beast.

Internet connectivity should be considered a public utility. It shouldn't be subject to intrusive monitoring by the provider. Just like the phone company can't send you targeted adds based on the phone numbers you call, Google shouldn't be able to target ads based on your online activity (when outside the normal google product channels). Gmail isn't a public utility, an ISP is. Can you imagine: "Based on the fact that you uploaded photos of a baby's birthday party, we'd like to show you ads for baby toys." That's like the phone company interrupting your phone call to Paris to advertise airline tickets. Chinese ISPs already have highly intrusive advertising.. ads that effectively take over your browser regardless of what site you're visiting.

The only thing worse than a Google ISP would be a Facebook one.

> I would also be a bit happier with a real, innovative, public broadband program. I don't think the US has the political culture to pull that off.

The political culture is one that caters to specific groups. If it was "broadband for farmers" then you'd get the farm lobby pushing for it. If it was "broadband for the poor" then you'd get the food stamp crowd on board. If it was "broadband for investment banks" then you might get the bank crowd on board.

The fact that most infrastructure doesn't get broad-based political support is a symptom of "what's in it for me." It why it's so difficult to solve problems like Air Traffic Control systems being from the 1970s -- most people think, "I only fly once in a while, so why should I give up in order to pay for upgrading the ATC system?" Sure, many people use the internet, but the average user doesn't think about how much better things could be.

I get it -- broadband would benefit everyone either directly or indirectly, but it's hard to sell those benefits to the general electorate because money for broadband would mean less money for some other, more politically "interesting" project.

I don't think anyone in America (Republican, Democrat, Independent) wants terrible infrastructure. The political hot potato is deciding how to pay for it. Regardless of tax or spending philosophies, it necessarily follows that spending on X takes money from Y. With money we spent for 1 year in Iraq, we could have paid for national broadband (among other things), however we also spend $80 billion per year on food stamps. Both of those priorities however, have some unexpected consequences. The defense contractors make money, but it also creates jobs and stimulates economic output (see WWII). Food stamps also create taxable events and drives economic activity, though both activities, when viewed in purely economic terms are net losses for the economy, the degree of which is outside of the scope of this discussion. Public broadband on the other hand would be a net gain for the economy because increased infrastructure efficiency greases the wheels of the entire economy. Better roads = lower trucking costs and more consumption and therefore more spending and jobs. However, it's hard to quantify those theoretical benefits to the electorate. Same goes for public broadband.

There are some tasks ideally suited for government and utilities, infrastructure, police/fire, defense are certainly among them. Public broadband is more relevant to governmental roles than subsidizing private business (i.e. GM, Fiskar, Solyndra, Bank of America, etc.) Our infrastructure should be "too big to fail," but alas..

/rant truncated

> the UN even declared that the internet is a fundamental basic human right

The UN should stick to prancing around in blue helmets handing out food while ignoring genocide in Tibet.

Not really but a friend of mine was scammed out of $40k legit AdSense earnings.

As for the quality of AdWords - I have not forgotten about the 500 million dollar fine Google received for pharmacy ads.