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"I would much rather Mozilla be investing money in breaking the global Google monopoly than bothering with some regional peasantry like the carriers." Consider

"I would much rather Mozilla be investing money in breaking the global Google monopoly than bothering with some regional peasantry like the carriers." Considering that the carriers are the ones who actually control the gate, they should be focusing on them.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
This is an incorrect notion: There are hundreds and hundreds of gates at the ISP level. From a realistic standpoint, ISPs do not and cannot control information. They may be able to get involved in a limited geographic area, in some fashions, but they're already far more heavily regulated than the nearly free reign Google has, and it's far easier to circumvent their control. Almost all information travels through and is monitored, filtered, and censored by Google. At multiple levels, including the browser, the operating system, email services, search/discovery, and more. And as Google moves into pushing companies to migrate their data about you to Google, you no longer even have the choice to look for alternatives. For example, RCS messaging is moving text messaging systems over to Google servers, and there's nothing you can do about it, because it's a carrier-level decision. Google has recently bragged to advertisers it gets 70% of all credit and debit card transaction data in the US. Even if you don't do business with Google or use any Google services, everything ends up feeding back to them through one way or another. Meanwhile, apart from areas which aren't very profitable to be an ISP, most people have at least some options for ISPs, even if they aren't good options, and most ISP conduct can either be opted out of or circumvented with ease. If you are worried about censorship, privacy, and fairness on the Internet, and you're worried about ISPs, you're being sorely misled. And guess who's been paying for all the marketing about how bad the ISPs are? https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  That is simply an incorrect statement. If the ISP decided to censor the data, you'd simply not be able to get to it at all. Google does not have that ability, no matter what. They cannot prevent me from accessing something. Being concerned about ISPs, especially with NN being repealed, is not being misled at all. It's being prudent.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    The point you may have missed here, is that an ISP can only stop you from getting some data through that particular ISP. They can't silence information because there are many ISPs, and even if you are somewhere where literally no consumers have an alternative ISP (this is unlikely), there's cell phones, which are different ISPs. And satellite Internet. (Oh, and businesses usually have more/different ISP options than consumers may in a given area as well.) ISPs cannot silence people. If they could, you wouldn't hear everyone whining about net neutrality. But Google can render a site effectively nonexistent from the Internet, and most of your communications goes either to or from a Google server at some point, whether it's a website, an email, a text, or a phone call. Statistically, you likely also use a phone running Google software, use a web browser made by Google, and use Google as your primary email account, which potentially grants them access to all of the data in all of your other accounts. (That's before we add in that Google's now in the ISP game, and both your landline and mobile ISP could also be Google.) In fact, the only way to convey a message and be confident Google can't intercept it or block it, is to drive to someone and tell them in person. ...Until Google drives your car, too.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > They can't silence information because there are many ISP Not true in most of the US.
      - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        "Most" = more than 50%? Of households? (There's 118 million households in the US, so you're looking for at least 59 million households.) ...Source?
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

This is an incorrect notion: There are hundreds and hundreds of gates at the ISP level. From a realistic standpoint, ISPs do not and cannot control information. They may be able to get involved in a limited geographic area, in some fashions, but they're already far more heavily regulated than the nearly free reign Google has, and it's far easier to circumvent their control. Almost all information travels through and is monitored, filtered, and censored by Google. At multiple levels, including the browser, the operating system, email services, search/discovery, and more. And as Google moves into pushing companies to migrate their data about you to Google, you no longer even have the choice to look for alternatives. For example, RCS messaging is moving text messaging systems over to Google servers, and there's nothing you can do about it, because it's a carrier-level decision. Google has recently bragged to advertisers it gets 70% of all credit and debit card transaction data in the US. Even if you don't do business with Google or use any Google services, everything ends up feeding back to them through one way or another. Meanwhile, apart from areas which aren't very profitable to be an ISP, most people have at least some options for ISPs, even if they aren't good options, and most ISP conduct can either be opted out of or circumvented with ease. If you are worried about censorship, privacy, and fairness on the Internet, and you're worried about ISPs, you're being sorely misled. And guess who's been paying for all the marketing about how bad the ISPs are? https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html

s73v3r_ 9y ago
That is simply an incorrect statement. If the ISP decided to censor the data, you'd simply not be able to get to it at all. Google does not have that ability, no matter what. They cannot prevent me from accessing something. Being concerned about ISPs, especially with NN being repealed, is not being misled at all. It's being prudent.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  The point you may have missed here, is that an ISP can only stop you from getting some data through that particular ISP. They can't silence information because there are many ISPs, and even if you are somewhere where literally no consumers have an alternative ISP (this is unlikely), there's cell phones, which are different ISPs. And satellite Internet. (Oh, and businesses usually have more/different ISP options than consumers may in a given area as well.) ISPs cannot silence people. If they could, you wouldn't hear everyone whining about net neutrality. But Google can render a site effectively nonexistent from the Internet, and most of your communications goes either to or from a Google server at some point, whether it's a website, an email, a text, or a phone call. Statistically, you likely also use a phone running Google software, use a web browser made by Google, and use Google as your primary email account, which potentially grants them access to all of the data in all of your other accounts. (That's before we add in that Google's now in the ISP game, and both your landline and mobile ISP could also be Google.) In fact, the only way to convey a message and be confident Google can't intercept it or block it, is to drive to someone and tell them in person. ...Until Google drives your car, too.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > They can't silence information because there are many ISP Not true in most of the US.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      "Most" = more than 50%? Of households? (There's 118 million households in the US, so you're looking for at least 59 million households.) ...Source?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...