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Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

googleprotest.com

41–50 of 155 posts

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inbound on port 25? I know my ISP does

Come to think of it, I've never looked at inbound stuff. You'd think outbound would be where all the spam problems come from, though.

> You'd think outbound would be where all the spam problems come from, though.

They block port 25 to prevent open relays on their network (i.e. someone sends a forged email, the SMTP server does no authentication, and just forwards it on to the destination).

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#42
post #2

To save people from looking, it has been changed to; --- To operate servers for commercial purposes. However, personal, non-commercial use of servers that complies with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security. ---

They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?

Actually an email server that provides mail for you is a 'non commercial use', it would be commercial if you were offering other people email accounts on it and charging them for it.

It gets a little bit dicey if you host your blog on a server (btw I just setup Ghost on an Rpi and it makes for a very cute little blog-pliance) and your blog has ads and provides you with an income stream.

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#43
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like false advertising to me...

I'm not sure what would be preferable. They could sell you metered bandwidth; but everyone always complains about metered bandwidth, and no one wants to accidentally have their 14 year old nephew who comes to visit for a week blow out your caps and cost you tons of money because they left Bittorrent seeding a bunch of popular movies. They could just sell you lower bitrates. But then everyone would suffer, as they wou…

Really the only difference between "residential" and "commercial" plans should be service guarantees. I do not expect Comcast's residential cable service to have any particular guarantee of service; if I had a commercial contract, I would certainly demand some sort of guarantee about available bandwidth and uptime. That is what we have now, more or less.

To put it another way, suppose nobody gets any service guarantee with their residential connection. Why should it be acceptable to say, "How dare you maximize your use of this, when it reduces availability for everyone else?!?" Nobody gets a guarantee of service at all.

Now, if we do get guarantees about our minimum service level, then there is an easy solution, which is to just reduce throughput for "heavy users" to the point where everyone else is getting their minimum guaranteed service. That would not be so bad at all: minimum service guarantees rather than maximum service limits. Of course, once you start making guarantees like that, people start expecting you to follow through and your ability to grossly oversell your network's capacity is constrained (what a tragedy).

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?

I do not think that is an exhaustive list. The only thing it excludes are commercial operations, so I would assume that yes, you can run personal services (even services you share freely with friends or strangers), but that you cannot try to monetize those services. IANAL though.

I think that they might have an issue with you hosting the "Next Facebook" from your house, even if it's not a commercial operation.

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#45
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like false advertising to me...

Let's just imagine for a moment what "truthful advertising" would look like. Probably something like "1 Mbps for $50/month"; when ISPs are already offering 15 Mbps for $50 today there's no way to get there from here.

How about this: for $50/mo you get a guarantee of at least 1Mbps of continuous throughput (or at least a best effort at that), with no restriction on your usage beyond that? Why does it need to be black or white? Why not just dynamically adjust the throughput for "heavy users" so that nobody sees speeds below some level regardless of how others are utilizing the network?

Oh, wait, these connections are so grossly oversold that the only such guarantee that could be made would be on the order of dialup speeds. Why should we feel pity for ISPs that create such a situation, when they are charging us more and providing us with less than what people pay and enjoy in other countries?

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They specifically left email off of that list. The question is: can I host servers that may compete with the commercial offerings of Google? Can I host my personal blog? Can I host my personal email server?

Actually an email server that provides mail for you is a 'non commercial use', it would be commercial if you were offering other people email accounts on it and charging them for it. It gets a little bit dicey if you host your blog on a server (btw I just setup Ghost on an Rpi and it makes for a very cute little blog-pliance) and your blog has ads and provides you with an income stream.

Although if your blog has Adwords, maybe they wouldn't mind... :)

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#47
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if cars were sold this way: "Unlimited high-speed Italian sports-car, leases starting at only $250/mo! By the way, we're also giving keys to your neighbors, and if you drive the car too often we're going to deactivate your copy of the keys "

Of course comparing apples to oranges leads to absurdities; not all things have the same attributes as all other things.

How about this: if I rent a car for one day, and the rental describes itself as "unlimited mileage", I expect to be able to use it for 24 hours straight.

If I get fined for using it for the full 24 hours because that puts wear and tear on the car that the car rental business did not anticipate, then I am going to accuse them of false advertising. I don't care if everybody doing that would ruin their business; if they don't want me to use as many miles as I please during the rental period, then they shouldn't call it "unlimited". "We only offered it to you at that rate because we counted on you not actually using it that much" doesn't fly with me.

Seriously, Hertz offers unlimited miles on most of their rentals. Do you think they would get pissed if I put 1500 miles on one of their cars next Saturday? No, I doubt it, even though if everybody did that their car would be on it's last legs in mere months. That is exactly the sort of thing that ISPs get bitchy over though.

I don't think this is apples and oranges in the slightest.

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#49
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course comparing apples to oranges leads to absurdities; not all things have the same attributes as all other things.

How about this: if I rent a car for one day, and the rental describes itself as "unlimited mileage", I expect to be able to use it for 24 hours straight. If I get fined for using it for the full 24 hours because that puts wear and tear on the car that the car rental business did not anticipate, then I am going to accuse them of false advertising. I don't care if everybody doing that would ruin their business; if they…

That's a much better analogy, yes.

Re: Google Fiber now allows servers for non-commercial use

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to think of it, I've never looked at inbound stuff. You'd think outbound would be where all the spam problems come from, though.

If you block 25 outbound, people's mail clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) could not deliver mail to servers that don't run SSL or TLS (465, 587)

Used to have Bellsouth DSL, and they did this. SMTP/TLS on a different port worked though. But obviously you couldn't run your own e-mail server.
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