>>A very big issue is that they assume a linear correlation between transferred data and power use. Right, so they do have to make lots of assumptions (same as

>>A very big issue is that they assume a linear correlation between transferred data and power use. Right, so they do have to make lots of assumptions (same as all reports I've seen that are trying to estimate carbon footprint) - e.g., about the type of network, the device, the energy mix supplying DCs etc etc. For instance, only 2% of networks in a country like Germany go over fibre, rest is copper. In Italy lots of people outside major cities use LTE for regular Internet access - absolutely insane in terms of energy use. >>any report that tries to tell me Google or Amazon, who spend millions on DC energy improvements, are wasting orders of magnitude of energy more, is not a serious report. You're talking past the point here, seems to me. The report is _not_ claiming that any specific technology is "wasting energy" in terms of efficiency - it poses the question of whether this energy is spent "wisely", seeing that supposedly the world is trying to reduce global emissions, and the consumption of say DCs or online video is growing constantly. Surely, not an unreasonable question to be raised, don't you think? Amazon may be efficient but their energy comes mostly from non-renewable sources. On a scale of 1-10 how important do you think this use of dirty energy is?