Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately you’ve probably heard all about local communities trying to attract the attention of Internet juggernaut, Google, to provide their residents/businesses with crazy fast Internet unlike nearly anything else available out there. This project named Google Fiber for Communities, at face value, seems like a great idea there are a number of issues every American should have with it.
We’ve all heard about Google, Kansas and Duluth’s own campaigns for Google to bring blazing fast Internet to their towns. What you may not have known is that many other groups, much closer to home, are vying for Google’s attention including Dakota Future through Dakota Future Fiber and, yes, even our illustrious Apple Valley Mayor Mary Hamann-Roland.
Seriously? Apple Valley really has nothing better to do but waste nearly 30 minutes talking about how to attract Google to our city? I mean, it’s not like taxpayers are upset over a $4.5 million facility being underutilized or a poorly planned LED street light pilot. Why not ignore the fact that someone has pointed out serious problems in the city and instead concern yourselves with doubling the efforts of Dakota Future and enter yourselves into what amounts to the lottery for public administrators.
In addition to the utter waste of time and duplication of effort are the other concerns that public administrators should have about Google’s project. This is a for-profit company which is in the business of making money at the expense of your own personal privacy. The Star Tribune covered the efforts of Dakota Future and Scott County’s bid for Google’s love and one of their commenters summed up the personal privacy issue much better than I ever could:
Google can go somewhere else with your logo “Do no Evil” because you keep the goods on all of us. As far as I am concerned that is about as unAmerican as a corporation can get. I don’t think they should have the right to store search information that can identify people who use there search engine. Ads on their site is ok but storing information, to me is like tapping you phone,having you followed or collaboration with a NAZI or Communist state. They can keep their high speed spying. This is just my opinion. It is ok to still have an opinion in America isn’t it?
posted by lothlorn on Mar. 14, 10 at 11:58 AM
Now, while no one is going to force this Internet connection on the residents of the winning town, “competitive pricing” combined with speeds currently unheard of in the residential sector will likely drive people to this in droves. Should the government really be permitted to make this sort of decision? Should they have to live up to a higher standard as a protector of the people than a corporation like Google? Should the Apple Valley City Council concentrate on business that is actually happening rather than spending time on something which will, in reality, never happen in a million years? Whatever you have to say about the Apple Valley City Council and their bid for Google’s fiber outlay go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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March 15th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Apple Valley Wastes Time With Google Fiber for Communities http://bit.ly/8XSdAj
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 15th, 2010 at 8:42 am
[...] Lightning’s Bill Roehl gives us a local view of the mad rush to become one of Google’s test locations for their new ultra-high speed [...]
March 15th, 2010 at 10:43 am
I believe every single city in the county is lobbying Google. I’m just guessing that the winning deals will have some strings attached. How else do you stand out?
My fav is Baltimore appointed a “Google Czar” http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/13/google-czar/
I would rather AV stay out of this.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Isn’t it possible to use Google anonymously if you don’t sign up for an account? (or as anonymous as things get on the internet, which let’s face it, it’s all traceable with the right resources…) You can opt out of tracking search history if you do have an account.
Maybe I’m missing something, but comments like that sound like ignorant tin-foil hat kind of stuff to me.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:00 am
BK, there are so many different possible ways that individual users’ browsing habits can be tracked that it’s less tin-foil and more scary than you might think.
1. Individual browser identification.
2. IP
3. Cookies (whether you are logged in or not you get a cookie–now some people clear them every time they log out, most do not)
4. etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
—
Now this is not to say that Google does any sort of research on individual searchers–in fact they probably don’t when you’re not logged in as it’s just not worth it when they have as much data as they do have. But, when they have a network which was sanctioned and probably given loopholes to exist by the local government you have to wonder what other information gets passed along.
You don’t see local governments clamoring for other ISPs to come to their area, nope. In fact you see them fighting over access fees all the time. So what’s different about Google that makes the government really care?
March 15th, 2010 at 11:17 am
BK, using Google web applications and Google as your ISP are 2 totally different things. Google’s list of privacy concerns goes on and on. This is just another one on the list. I don’t consider it tin foil hat stuff at all. They could know more about you than any other single entity. We are just trusting that they are not evil.
Bill, I really think government is jumping on board just because it is sexy. 1Gbps speeds and the Google name.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Well let’s look at a community like Apple Valley which has fibre running alongside CR-46 right now. Why not work with McLeod (or whoever they are now) to get that access spread to the last mile. Hell, I live within 100 feet of that line–hook me up now.
As far as the name of Google, I’m glad some other mayor was stupid enough to “rename” their town after the corporation because if they hadn’t Mayor Mary certainly would have while touting how green the “l” is in Google.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:38 am
I’m not sure I like to see the city staff wasting their time. Perhaps better would be a community group with authorization from the city to investigate it. Google started buying Dark fiber years ago and folks were wondering what was up back then. I guess we can see where they were going.
As far as tracking you on the internet, I hope folks don’t really think that it doesn’t happen already. I know Frontier tracks usage information, I’m sure the cable companies do. Google tracks info, and if you allow scripting, tons of info is available. There are various sites you can go to that show you all the info you expose when browsing, let alone searching. Nearly all of these organizations track the information as aggregations. Thus your IP address, and or your name/logins are not generally tracked.
The federal government is working to force ISP’s and likely Google to add the detailed layer of tracking on top of all the information they gather, so that it becomes much easier for law enforcement to pinpoint you, should something you post, browse, download, upload, tweet, etc… run afoul of the law.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a post about how you can start to protect yourself from all this data capturing and it being pin-pointable to you:
http://www.eff.org/wp/six-tips-protect-your-search-privacy
Personally, I have no problem with Google making such an infrastructure available en mass. Google is simply taking advantage of the opening that existing companies have failed to leverage. I.e. Cable companies, and Phone Companies. They make money not by selling the services we use for free, but by selling the aggregated data they generate from how we use their services to advertisers that want to optimize their advertising spending.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:41 am
I’m familiar with the various ways information can be tracked and use and understand the differences between Google the application provider and Google the ISP.
You still, ultimately, have the choice to use Google services or not, and certainly would also have that choice with broadband. I believe that that the other existing providers would use this as an impetus to improve their services if Google comes into town with broadband services. The other provider’s future depends on it.
I just think pulling the privacy card with Google detracts from the real issue here, which is the concentration of power Google has amassed which might take out other choices in the future. That’s why I oppose them being treated differently from other providers.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I dont remember which thread, but I made a post on here a few months ago that Google is taking over the world. I was only partly joking.
There have been numerous stories and articles about how much information Google has about people. Every single search that has ever been performed is stored, and while they may not be able to tell what your name is, they can tell what computer it was done from. Googles own CEO said that people tell Google things they would never tell thier spouse or priest, in the form of Google Searches.
As noted above, its simply the assumption that the company is not evil, and the fact that if they did misuse the data people would quit using Google that is currently causing a bit of a stalemate. The amount of info they have about every single one of us is simply staggering. The fact that they are at a point where they are powerful enough to have a showdown with the Chinese govt over privacy issues should tell you how far Google has come.
I use google, and have to assume that I just am not doing anything interesting enough to make anyone take notice of me, but if you stop to think about it, the info they have, and the ease they could link it back to you (even if you dont subscrive to any of thier searches) is a little on the scary side.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:54 am
http://www.lazylightning.org/definitely-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time#comment-43604
March 15th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I really don’t have a problem with this. It’s not like the city is considering giving Google a monopoly, paying Google to come, or forcing residents to use Google. Instead, the city is offering to let Google invest millions in high speed internet infrastructure in the city — just like communities let Verizon, Qwest, Time Warner, etc. install infrastructure in the city that residents can choose to use.
Sure, the city is investing some time in the invitation to Google… but it’s probably a relatively small amount of time that has the possibility to help the city reap big gains. Sure, there’s no guarantee AV will get the investment, but governments spend a lot of time applying for grants and other uncertain funding sources. Just because there’s no guarantee the time invested will pay off doesn’t mean cities should give up on trying to save taxpayer money by seeking outside funding sources for valuable projects.
March 15th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Ah, see that’s where I disagree. I’m all for staff paid for by the taxpayer looking for grants that are:
1. Obtainable
2. Necessary
This does not fit into either category and grant writers (or staff who write grants as part of their job description) generally do not come cheap. Believe me, I have requested information that is generally pieced together by low-level staffers and when the estimates come back on cost, even though they hold what I consider to be menial administrative positions, their salaries are greatly inflated over what I consider to be acceptable.
So, we’re using hours of staff time paid for by the taxpayers for a grant that is going to go to about 0.15% of the population? Let’s concentrate instead on grants for public safety–lord knows we need that far more than 1Gbps Internet connections.
March 15th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
To be clear on this. I don’t care if Google wants to sell internet connectivity here. I just don’t think AV needs to waste their time trying to lure Google in. The odds are pretty bad.
I also do not want to give them any more of less of an incentive to do business here than any other ISP. We don’t need to go gaga over google like some other cities.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
I doubt Apple Valley’s efforts will pay off, and I am skeptical of those of other communities around here too.
That said, I hope the threat posed by Google does scare the existing ISPs enough for them to improve their service and offerings, if nothing else. And I’m far more concerned about Comcast merging with NBC Universal than I am about Google, to be honest.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Holy crap – where to start…
I’m of the opinion that internally government agencies should be run like a business. That obviously doesn’t apply to their core values and objectives, but for the sake of not getting off subject, let’s just all agree that in general government agencies big and small waste unfathomable amounts of money in ways that would quickly relieve employees in the private sector of their jobs. I worked for the biggest offender for several years if anyone needs some examples. Anyone??? Bueller???
So is this an argument for or against Google Fiber? Let’s table that for a moment. My point is that by running every decision past the litmus test of “necessary” (presumably meant by Bill in the sense of necessary to meet this agency’s objectives) might eliminate a lot of practices that make great business sense. Is it necessary in that sense to sell ads on the sides of public transportation vehicles? Of course not, but someone had the brilliant idea that maybe it would keep the cost down for expensive things like the LRT if they could recover some of the cost from companies who have money burning a hole in their advertising pockets.
So how would a large corporation evaluate this opportunity? It would probably be discussed at an [expensive] high level meeting, and if it seems like there’s potential, a cost/benefit/risk analysis would be done. So isn’t that pretty much where it’s at now at AV – high level discussion?
As far as “obtainable” goes, does anyone know what Google is using to evaluate trial cities? My quick research would indicate that they are not divulging that info. So as far as we know AV is not at a disadvantage. We do have a higher than average amount of high-tech jobs in the Twin Cities, which is probably an advantage.
Ok, enough about that – I’d like to hear some examples of ways that Google uses your non-specific drop in their ocean of data that’s a problem for you? Is it just that it’s out there? Are you hiding something? ;)
March 17th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
More about Apple Valley wasting taxpayer dollars by dedicating staff time to this project from Thisweek here: http://www.thisweeklive.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15972&Itemid=2
Our illustrious mayor had this to say about the project:
Sometimes I seriously have to wonder if the taxpayers should pay for an interpreter that cuts through her layers of nonsense so we can actually understand what it is she’s talking about.
March 17th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Don’t you get it? Haven’t you ever looked through a fiber optic cable? IT’S GREEN!
‘Nuf said.
March 27th, 2010 at 1:19 am
Hey, Bill. I totally agree about the privacy implications. For more outstanding information about that, I recommend reading all that Bruce Schneier has written on the topic. Google is not here to protect your information.
However, I understand the officials’ motivation. They’re far more concerned with the boost to local businesses and jobs, as we should reasonably expect. Having gigabit fiber to the homes would be like having the first Roman town with working aqueducts and fountains. As I’m sure they’ll point out, you’re not forced to buy Google’s service.
As for Apple Valley, they should be joining the County’s bid, if you ask me.
March 27th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
[...] the Google application) was Google Twin Ports Day. There are a few folks who wonder why cities are wasting their time (at tax payers’ expense). It’s been fun to watch from the sidelines. But the big question is [...]