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I honestly don't see the problem with this. The restriction on servers is clearly not there to prevent you from SSHing to your home computer or to run a Minecra

I honestly don't see the problem with this. The restriction on servers is clearly not there to prevent you from SSHing to your home computer or to run a Minecraft server for you and your friends. It's there to prevent abuse of your otherwise unlimited gigabit connection for only $70/month to run a filesharing website on that saturates the connection 24/7/365. If you want to use Google Fiber for business use, pay for their business plan, simple as that. EDIT: Seems a few people are missing a key detail. When you buy a personal Google Fiber plan, you're not paying for an unmetered 1Gbps upstream/downstream fiber connection. You're paying for an unmetered 1Gbps upstream/downstream connection for personal use. (https://fiber.google.com/legal/terms.html https://fiber.google.com/legal/terms.html). There are services that will sell you purely unmetered, unrestricted bandwidth, but it won't be Google Fiber, and it won't be for only $70/month.

guelo 13y ago
If you're not selling me a gigabit connection with unlimited bandwidth than don't tell me that's what you're selling. Put in your bandwidth caps if you need to. Just don't tell me what I can do with my bandwidth that I bought.
- Kylekramer 13y ago
  Why force them to sell one product that is worse (capped) instead of two products with clearly delineated use cases?
  - ihsw 13y ago
    Why not make it obvious what the use cases are rather than attacking customers based on the definition of "server"? It's unclear, vague, ambiguous, and a host of other similar synonyms. Using the term "server" is open-ended and it gives ISPs unnecessary discretion over cutting users' connections. If the rationale is that customers whom are operating commercial businesses out of their home internet connection are abusing their internet connection, then put the goal-post there. Using the term "server" allows ISPs to change the goal-post when its convenient for them, and that's unfair.
    - aroch 13y ago
      It isn't particularly vague, see jmillikin's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201215 Also, a moving goalpost isn't really unfair at all in this situation (Assuming it is, in fact, a moving goalpost). They have every right to make changes to their network to ensure good quality service to everyone. ETA: If you're going to downvote, you should explain yourself.
    - baddox 13y ago
      I haven't read their terms of service, but I would be willing to bet that their terms leave it up to their own judgement, which is fine, because you have the option of agreeing to that or not.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    > clearly delineated use cases? There is the problem.
    - blhack 13y ago
      Give an example of something that falls in a grey area.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        If I have to read fine print, then it is a grey area. If I have to interpret what they currently mean by "server", or what they may mean by "server" in the future, or what they may mean by "server" if I happen to piss them off for some reason, then it is certainly a grey area. Can I run a server from my home? Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged. It is nice of them to be explicit with a few hand-picked cases, but that remains grey as fuck as far as I am concerned. What if I run a hairdressing business in my home and happen to blow through several terabytes in a weekend with git-annex? It seems clear to me that this should be acceptable, but I cannot feel confident it would become a problem. Maybe it is clear to some lawyer somewhere, but it is not clear to me, the consumer.
        androidninja 13y ago
        If you're using the connection for a business in your home, then you are not using the connection for "non-commercial" uses and therefore should be paying for a Business Class of service
        jlgreco 13y ago
        Who the hell defines that? What if I'm doing home accounting on my home computer and ssh into it? What if my accounting includes my spouses small hobby-business that is run from the home? What if I work a normal job but frequently VPN in and work from home? What if the traffic that makes them upset is not the traffic that is business related? This shit is vague. It may be clear to you, but it isn't categorically.
  - zipppy 13y ago
    I'm not convinced that use cases determine Google's acceptance of how the service is used. e.g. If someone uses the service to download & upload 100gb+ of data a day, and somehow it's actually for personal use, I suspect that Google would restrict them. If so, the spirit of the terms isn't as much to delineate between types of use as much as it is to delineate between amounts of use.
    - Kylekramer 13y ago
      Well, let's yell at Google when they do that. As it is written it seems go out of the way to address use case. If they just wanted to just go after heavy users indiscriminately, they wouldn't take care to say that they won't ban typical home use that would fall under the vague definition of server.
    - Retric 13y ago
      100gb a day is ~1% of a 1GB connection and probably completely ok with them. My guess is if your serving up multiple tb of upstream bandwidth they might have an issue but I have yet to hear of anyone doing so.
- aroch 13y ago
  It's 'best effort' bandwidth, not 'unlimited'...
  - sp332 13y ago
    "Best effort" is still a lot better than "banned because we didn't like your bits."
- chrissnell 13y ago
  You didn't really buy 1 Gbit of unlimited-use bandwidth. You bought the right to use up to 1 Gbit of throughput so long as you abide by their T&C/AUP in your usage of that throughput. This bandwidth is oversold. Of course it's oversold. 1000 Mbit of Internet connectivity costs a lot more than you're paying Google for it, never mind the last-mile cost of connecting your home. You can't seriously expect to run a business on a residential connection sold at residential prices, right? Like it or not, this has been the status-quo since the earliest days of broadband in the late 1990s. Now, that said, Good Guy Google would give every Google Fiber customer a GAE instance on which to run their servers. By doing this, they move the servers to network infrastructure that's actually designed for running servers.
  - trafficlight 13y ago
    I've been thinking a lot about starting a fiber ISP in my hometown and this is a big issue that's come up. I don't believe in restricting what a customer can do with their connection to internet, but I also don't want to someone to consume more resources than they are reasonably paying for. In my ideal world, I want to sell a connection to the internet that is as fast as I can reasonably deliver. I don't even want to make the distinction between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. I don't want speed to be factor. Just fast. Is there a better way to phrase the service offering instead of 'unlimited'? When I read this back to myself, it sounds like I want to have my cake and eat it to. Lots of contradictions in my mind.
    - clebio 13y ago
      Other options and terms: metering, throttling, and grade of service (QoS). You can sell 'unlimited' to everyone, but give the option of service classes. This is basically QoS, but (mis-)using it to give preferential service to high-paying customers. That's also essentially what 'business-class' is, as others are mentioning in this thread.
    - wmf 13y ago
      Some people prefer the term "unmetered" if you don't charge for traffic but there are limits on the service. You can let your network congest and use a fair queueing box so that the congestion will only be borne by the heaviest customers. Alternately you can sell something like 50 Mbps, 125 MB token bucket service which will allow people to burst to 1 Gbps for 1 second.
- sigzero 13y ago
  " Just don't tell me what I can do with my bandwidth that I bought." What? They absolutely can do that.
  - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
    Also, they can go around killing anyone they don't like. That doesn't mean we should approve or shouldn't advocate laws prohibiting it.
- baddox 13y ago
  You can just read the terms and choose whether or not to pay for the service. Unless they're omitting these things from their terms, I don't see the problem. They're telling you what you can do, and you're choosing whether to pay for it.
  - WalterSear 13y ago
    If you read the article, this main issue is that they omit the definition of a 'server'.
kbn32 13y ago
Using the bandwidth you're paying for is not an "abuse". It's pointless calling even Google Fiber unlimited - as you've stated anyone using up to the limit will be restricted. "It's unlimited as long as you don't try and use it all the time!" What a load of bullshit. I'm surprised the EFF were expecting Google to maintain a higher standard than other ISPs, especially since revelations that Google allowed the NSA a backdoor into every system.
- mh- 13y ago
  especially since revelations that Google allowed the NSA a backdoor into every system sorry, what?
  - kbn32 13y ago
    Please don't ask me to summarise the revelations of the last few months. Reading the Guardian reports on the issue would be a good starting point. Tl;dr: Google allowed the NSA unrestricted access to every Google service. No legal challenges were made.
    - mh- 13y ago
      Google allowed the NSA unrestricted access to every Google service citation, please
      - kbn32 13y ago
        http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-access-to-tech-companies-2013-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-a...
        thisisnotatest 13y ago
        (Full disclosure: I'm a Google employee.) Personally I think Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, not a traitor. However, I consider the leaks to be insufficient evidence for the conclusions you're drawing from them. Here was Google CEO Larry Page's response: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html What makes you believe one report over the other?
umsm 13y ago
I agree. Anyone that is serious about a website should get a real host.
- homeomorphic 13y ago
  Who decides what that is? The Internet is a network of peers, not a network of "real hosts" serving "simply clients". Without honoring that, an ISP isn't really an ISP, is it? It's more of an "Internet client facilitator".
- pra 13y ago
  Plz define 'real host'. My pentium s clocked at 120MHz is a damn real host.
- mhurron 13y ago
  And how does a 15 year old kid without a credit card do that? Not everyone throwing a webpage up is 'serious' about it. Sometimes they're learning, or it's a hobby. Google is simply continuing the tradition of making sure your users consume. If they are creating, they are not spending time looking at and clicking ads.
- natch 13y ago
  When did "serious" ever enter into it? I should be able to use or play with a server on the internet connection I pay for.
velodrome 13y ago
From the Google Fiber FAQ: "We are currently focused on our Fiber-to-the-home network, which is for residential consumers. For businesses located in qualified fiberhoods, we plan to introduce a small business offering shortly—stay tuned to google.com/fiber for more details." https://fiber.google.com/help/ https://fiber.google.com/help/
- cracell 13y ago
  Servers are not just a tool for businesses but have a lot of different uses as addressed in the article.
  - bhauer 13y ago
    Indeed! I'd like to see at least one tech titan take the mantle of personal/home servers and run with it. I recently said this was something Microsoft could do [1] to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive environment. Marginalizing home servers perpetuates an insipid consume-only Internet usage model. The Internet I'd prefer to see is one where serving and consuming are both first-class features for all. [1] http://tiamat.tsotech.com/microsoft http://tiamat.tsotech.com/microsoft (section 5)
deleted 13y ago
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gohrt 13y ago
If an ISP wants to provide limited Internet, it is rather easy to provide limited Internet. Is it $70/month for 1Gbps symmetric, or is it $70/month for 1Gbps symmetric with a cap of 10Gb/day? Why can't they say what they mean in their TOS, instead of falsely advertising "unlimited"? Why do they care about the content of the bits or why I am sending them?
- fastball 13y ago
  It's unlimited for personal use. Running a server is not usually considered "personal use", unless it's a personal server, which I'd presume they would allow.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    Then advertise it as such: "Gigabit Internet, in short bursts, and only if you are using your connection like a consumer (as we define the term)!" I guess that does not have quite the same ring to it...
    - UVB-76 13y ago
      Let's ban Google from advertising a "search" product while we're at it, as the product they actually provide is much more complex than the term does justice. Let's also ban them from advertising a "mail" service, because they should also have to specify the exact nature of the POP3/IMAP/SMTP service provided right there in the headline, along with all the fair use restrictions. This is asinine pedantry. Nobody is mistaking Google's residential and business Internet connection offerings. The terms and conditions are clearly stated, and it's fairly obvious to users if they are breaching the fair use policy.
      - res0nat0r 13y ago
        I don't know why, but for some reason when ever this issue comes up, this site likes to go into full on ignorant mode and pretend we don't know what the difference between personal and business class is. Most people find bandwidth charges by the gigabyte distasteful, hence no payments based on that. Don't run a warez ftp site on your personal connection and you will be fine. Worried you might be hitting their upper limit of usage on what their definition of "personal use" is? Fine then just start out of the gate by paying more for business class. It is really straightforward.
diminoten 13y ago
What exactly do you mean by, "abuse"? If your argument is that Google doesn't want someone overusing the bandwidth they've paid for, then you're saying that it's reasonable for Google/any ISP to sell you something that you then can't make full use of. If Google sells me 1gbit up/down, then I should be able to use 1gbit up/down. Pretty simple to both understand and enforce. But it's not about their network capacity - it's about forcing me to buy the more expensive business package, so I can then do exactly that thing they didn't want me doing before. It's a violation of network neutrality. They're caring which bits get sent, not the total sum of bits.
- Benji_San 13y ago
  Personal use as in you're not selling bandwidth to a third party. There is most likely no problem running a mail och minecraft server, but they definitely don't want you selling bandwidth to your neighbours or hosting your video streaming service on it.
  - diminoten 13y ago
    Frankly, what's the problem with selling (let's call it giving for now, that keeps this simpler) bandwidth to a third party? It's just bandwidth, why does the source or content of the packets matter?
- UVB-76 13y ago
  You are not sold a truly unlimited connection, you do not pay anything approaching the cost of a truly unlimited connection, and Google do not provide you with a truly unlimited connection. If you want a truly unlimited connection, buy a truly unlimited connection. They cost a lot of money.
dman 13y ago
This nonsense can stop if instead of having unlimited connections we have, we have connections that clearly state what the limits are and what constitutes allowed behavior.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  They don't know yet. They want to make it up as they go.
betterunix 13y ago
Why should I not be allowed to saturate my connection? What difference does it make how I am doing that? I am paying for a connection; if I can only use it in bursts, don't advertise it as "gigabit," advertise it as "gigabit for a few moments at a time." The Internet is not a network where some nodes have different capabilities from others, or at least it was not supposed to be. This is not some ITU standard that favors large monopolies on communications service. All nodes have the same capabilities on the Internet, as far as sending and receiving packets to other nodes is concerned. TCP does not discriminate between "business" and "personal" computers. This, of course, is what makes the Internet such a fantastic system and the reason that the Internet overtook all those online services we used to use. I doubt that Google could have gotten started if the Internet were designed any other way.
- nemothekid 13y ago
  >All nodes have the same capabilities on the Internet, as far as sending and receiving packets to other nodes is concerned. This is clearly untrue. Just look at DOCSIS (Cable Internet). If everyone on your block is streaming netflix at the same time you all suffer, which is why some people complain about speed during peak hours. This is simply the case that the architecture being laid out to consumer is designed for specific use cases.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    None of that has anything to do with the capabilities of Internet connected computers. Regardless of your connection speed or latency, you can communicate with any other computer that is connected to the Internet. That was the vision and thankfully it remains the reality of the Internet (despite the increasing threat).
    - nemothekid 13y ago
      It has everything to do with the capabilities of Internet connected computers. Your previous post asked why you couldn't saturate your connection. While we would all like to believe every node on the internet is equal, there are physical engineering limits and cost constraints we have to adhere to. Simply put, the economics simply don't make sense to give everyone in the neighborhood the ability for 24/7 1Gbps. It doesn't make sense because your grandma, won't max the connection 24/7, however she would still like for her Netflix movies to download quickly. So its been decided upon that ISP-x will only put $10 million rather than $20 million so that everyone can enjoy 1Gbps internet, just not 24/7 and all at the same time. If you do need this type of connection, then get a business class connection where you do have these guarantees, and the extra money you pay goes into making sure the infrastructure can meet your demands. However, at the end of the day it doesn't make sense to charge everyone more, for the needs of what must be 1% of the population. Remember for the most part this isn't used to stop you from SSHing into your home computer. This is stop people from using the connection in a perverse way from how it was designed. Its a simple engineering tradeoff.
tstactplsignore 13y ago
But this isn't about how much data a consumer uses- it is possible to consume large amounts of data as a client or a server. This is a greater problem about the limits on a egalitarian Internet. In the Great Firewall/SOPA/NSA/Mega-scandal world we live in, it is fundamental that users should be able to share content from private, ordinary connections. This is what the Internet was about, remember? People sharing information, not "people uploading information to Facebook/Google/Microsoft/Apple/Twitter". Decentralization is the Internet's greatest strength.
crusso 13y ago
Having owned/run an ISP I can tell you that you'll always have that small percentage of your user base that forces you to put in extra security measures, bandwidth limiters, storage limits, protective contract language, etc. The language in the contract doesn't bother me. Comcast has that language, I run my own web server, and they've never hassled me about it. Let us know when/if Google Fiber starts enforcing this contract term against people running servers for casual/personal use.
natch 13y ago
"Personal use" does not in any way imply "no servers." Nor does using/having/needing/running a server imply business use.
- bluedino 13y ago
  Right - which is why a personal use server such as your home music collection or Roku, or a COD server on Xbox is fine. Email for 500 people, running the next eBay, or co-locating boxes for people, isn't.
  - Albuca 13y ago
    I agree. Which is why most TOS make sense when aimed that way. Sadly some ISPs find it easier to make broad legal strokes to cover their backsides later on. For example: I run my own email server from my basement. Who uses it? Me. Maybe my dog... but mainly just me. Yes, it is technically a server, so yes technically my ISP could shut me down... but with a daily throughput of what, 10mB? I doubt it.
axus 13y ago
And the Supreme Court ruling to allow warrantless pen registers wasn't intended to give the government phone records and emails for every American, but that's what the language said so here we are. If the "unlimited" connection really isn't unlimited, the contract should spell out reasonable use limits. It's as simple as that. Google's contract actually goes much further than preventing servers. It says "You agree not to misuse the Services. This includes but is not limited to using the Services for purposes that are illegal, are improper, infringe the rights of others, or adversely impact others’ enjoyment of the Services." The definition of "misuse" is completely up to Google.
deleted 13y ago
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javajosh 13y ago
This ignores the possibility that a person could saturate a 1Gb connection pretty much constantly, even without servers. Let's say you're a small business owner who owns a few shops with security cameras. You might want to stream that video to your home. That said, I think it's reasonable to limit it to personal use - especially if that extends to your 2nd degree friends.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  And you would consider monitoring your business personal use?
deleted 13y ago
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otakucode 13y ago
If you think that you can set up your own node in a p2p social networking site that keeps your data on your own box and gives you control over who accesses it, and that since it uses negligible bandwidth it would be fine, I think you're wrong. The point of banning servers is to prevent competition with other services. They want you on a business connection because they believe if you are offering data to anyone that you should be monetizing it, and if you are monetizing it, they want to be guaranteed that they can take a percentage of your revenue. We're facing a very near future where MOST employees could out-compete their employers by going independent and selling their skills online. The ban on servers guarantees this can never happen to any degree that threatens the status quo. If it did grow to that scale, ISPs would just force such people to get business connections, meter their traffic and estimate the persons revenue, and raise their prices so that an independent worker would have the same overhead as a company that has to maintain a physical building, executives, etc, etc.
mikeash 13y ago
Trying to specify what purposes you're allowed to use your connection for seems like a losing game, and is basically the root of the whole problem. Just what is "personal use"? How exactly are they going to enforce that? Instead of trying to separate different "kinds" of usage, they should just separate different amounts and traffic patterns. Want a connection you can saturate 24/7? Pay more. Want something suitable for "personal use"? It's going to have some sort of cap. That's how most products I buy are sold, whether physical products or services. The electric company doesn't sell me electricity "for personal use". The water company doesn't care if I'm taking a shower or selling car wash services. The grocery store treats me exactly the same whether I'm buying supplies to cook tonight's family dinner or supplies to make sandwiches I'm going to sell. I fill up my personal car next to commercial trucks at the gas station, and there's no "personal/commercial" option at the pump. The real problem, in my opinion, is a bizarre prevailing environment where "unlimited" service is somehow expected of ISPs. Attempts to actually charge for use encounter huge resistance from the tech community. But they can't actually provide unlimited service at the price they charge, so they end up with a ton of weird rules to limit service instead of just charging heavy users more. Charge a reasonable price per gigabyte, and problem solved. People who want to saturate their connection all day can do so, and will pay accordingly. Light users pay less. It works out for almost every other product and service in the world!
- smm2000 13y ago
  Electric company totally care how you plan to use electricity with different rates for consumers and businesses. What's more, businesses pay different price based on whether they are ok to reduce consumption during peak hours, reliability, etc. Also water company totally cares if you plan to sell car wash services - for one you will have to pay much higher rate for sewer.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    These are all based entirely on quantity and timing of use, not the actual purpose, aren't they?
  - stinky613 13y ago
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
> The restriction on servers is clearly not there to prevent you from SSHing to your home computer or to run a Minecraft server for you and your friends. Intent doesn't matter. Violating terms of service is a crime. Enforcement at ???'s whim.
- biafra 13y ago
  "Violating terms of service is a crime" What? In which country?
  - mikeash 13y ago
    In the US. Maybe. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/rebooting-computer-crime-law-part-1-no-prison-time-for-violating-terms-of-service https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/rebooting-computer-cri...
pheleven 13y ago
It was many years ago now but I was living in an apartment complex that sold a shared connection on a wireless backhaul to a regional ISP - the ISP handled everything from building wiring to billing. My friends and I were in college and taking lots of IS/CS classes. I had a personal apache server running to test a variety of things. I never once gave anyone a link to it - it was 100% for personal amusement and learning. I had a 500k SWF video on it (which was creative commons) a few splash pages and whatnot, and that was it. The ISP was actively scanning their network for "servers" and came across mine. They played the SWF video from their office over the wireless backhaul. The video had ONE play (I kept the logs and attempted to give them to the ISP). I served ~505k, total. They turned off our internet connection and sent us a letter and bill of "overuse and abuse". They claimed we had uploaded 50mbps and were hosting illegal content and not abiding by our contract which said "no servers". While the main moral of the story is that ISP has complete morons running it (I uploaded 500k for a few miliseconds topping out at 50mbps in their eyes; funny thing was it was a 5mbps wireless backhaul), but this isn't a small ISP (Surewest) and they were actively scanning my connection for open ports, and then manually looking through content that they found on open ports (they admitted that!).
dragonwriter 13y ago
> I honestly don't see the problem with this. The central objection raised to it is that it is banning a specific set of applications, in apparent direct contravention to the FCC's Open Internet Report and Order (for which Google actively lobbied) which requires providers of fixed broadband services to permit customers the use of any legal applications and devices on the network. There is discussion of whether it falls within the scope of the reasonable network management limitation to that requirement, but given that all of the examples given in the Report and Order suggest that that exception is appropriate when various mechanisms of imposing in a use-neutral manner on the quantity of traffic to assure fairness among users of the same service when faced with load that, if all demands were met, would saturate the network, it doesn't look on its face like its an obvious candidate.
nilved 13y ago
If you pay $70/month for a gigabit connection, you have the right to saturate that connection 24/7/365.
rsingel 13y ago
One may argue then that an ISP could offer a service that bans the Bittorrent protocol under the argument that they want to prevent abuse of an otherwise unlimited connection for only $70/month to connect to a filesharing website that saturates the connection 24/7/365. In fact, that's basically what started the entire Net Neutrality debate. Comcast got busted messing with the bittorrent protocol, got slapped by the FCC for it, but then got the rules overturned in court. These new rules replace the old principles. And the new rules are clear: if you are selling broadband, you allow any legal service, application or device. If something is messing with the network, deal with indvidual user on a protocol-independent basis. If a kind of protocol is congesting the network, like say streaming video, then you may throttle ALL kinds of streaming video, inlcuding your own. Simple principles that Google used to believe in. And Google doesn't get to ignore the rules and escape criticism just because Google Fiber is cool. Principles matter.
derleth 13y ago
> When you buy a personal Google Fiber plan, you're not paying for an unmetered 1Gbps upstream/downstream fiber connection. You're paying for an unmetered 1Gbps upstream/downstream connection for personal use. "When you rent a car from Hertz, you're not paying for an unmetered vehicle to take you all around the region. You're paying for a vehicle to drive around in town and to and from the airport. It doesn't matter if this isn't mentioned in any of the advertising material or at the rental counter." There's nothing special about server traffic. Bits are bits, and if you're advertising certain bitrate for a certain price, deliver that or advertise something else.
njharman 13y ago
> for personal use. I personally use servers.

guelo 13y ago

If you're not selling me a gigabit connection with unlimited bandwidth than don't tell me that's what you're selling. Put in your bandwidth caps if you need to. Just don't tell me what I can do with my bandwidth that I bought.

Kylekramer 13y ago
Why force them to sell one product that is worse (capped) instead of two products with clearly delineated use cases?
- ihsw 13y ago
  Why not make it obvious what the use cases are rather than attacking customers based on the definition of "server"? It's unclear, vague, ambiguous, and a host of other similar synonyms. Using the term "server" is open-ended and it gives ISPs unnecessary discretion over cutting users' connections. If the rationale is that customers whom are operating commercial businesses out of their home internet connection are abusing their internet connection, then put the goal-post there. Using the term "server" allows ISPs to change the goal-post when its convenient for them, and that's unfair.
  - aroch 13y ago
    It isn't particularly vague, see jmillikin's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6201215 Also, a moving goalpost isn't really unfair at all in this situation (Assuming it is, in fact, a moving goalpost). They have every right to make changes to their network to ensure good quality service to everyone. ETA: If you're going to downvote, you should explain yourself.
  - baddox 13y ago
    I haven't read their terms of service, but I would be willing to bet that their terms leave it up to their own judgement, which is fine, because you have the option of agreeing to that or not.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  > clearly delineated use cases? There is the problem.
  - blhack 13y ago
    Give an example of something that falls in a grey area.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      If I have to read fine print, then it is a grey area. If I have to interpret what they currently mean by "server", or what they may mean by "server" in the future, or what they may mean by "server" if I happen to piss them off for some reason, then it is certainly a grey area. Can I run a server from my home? Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged. It is nice of them to be explicit with a few hand-picked cases, but that remains grey as fuck as far as I am concerned. What if I run a hairdressing business in my home and happen to blow through several terabytes in a weekend with git-annex? It seems clear to me that this should be acceptable, but I cannot feel confident it would become a problem. Maybe it is clear to some lawyer somewhere, but it is not clear to me, the consumer.
      - androidninja 13y ago
        If you're using the connection for a business in your home, then you are not using the connection for "non-commercial" uses and therefore should be paying for a Business Class of service
        jlgreco 13y ago
        Who the hell defines that? What if I'm doing home accounting on my home computer and ssh into it? What if my accounting includes my spouses small hobby-business that is run from the home? What if I work a normal job but frequently VPN in and work from home? What if the traffic that makes them upset is not the traffic that is business related? This shit is vague. It may be clear to you, but it isn't categorically.
- zipppy 13y ago
  I'm not convinced that use cases determine Google's acceptance of how the service is used. e.g. If someone uses the service to download & upload 100gb+ of data a day, and somehow it's actually for personal use, I suspect that Google would restrict them. If so, the spirit of the terms isn't as much to delineate between types of use as much as it is to delineate between amounts of use.
  - Kylekramer 13y ago
    Well, let's yell at Google when they do that. As it is written it seems go out of the way to address use case. If they just wanted to just go after heavy users indiscriminately, they wouldn't take care to say that they won't ban typical home use that would fall under the vague definition of server.
  - Retric 13y ago
    100gb a day is ~1% of a 1GB connection and probably completely ok with them. My guess is if your serving up multiple tb of upstream bandwidth they might have an issue but I have yet to hear of anyone doing so.
aroch 13y ago
It's 'best effort' bandwidth, not 'unlimited'...
- sp332 13y ago
  "Best effort" is still a lot better than "banned because we didn't like your bits."
chrissnell 13y ago
You didn't really buy 1 Gbit of unlimited-use bandwidth. You bought the right to use up to 1 Gbit of throughput so long as you abide by their T&C/AUP in your usage of that throughput. This bandwidth is oversold. Of course it's oversold. 1000 Mbit of Internet connectivity costs a lot more than you're paying Google for it, never mind the last-mile cost of connecting your home. You can't seriously expect to run a business on a residential connection sold at residential prices, right? Like it or not, this has been the status-quo since the earliest days of broadband in the late 1990s. Now, that said, Good Guy Google would give every Google Fiber customer a GAE instance on which to run their servers. By doing this, they move the servers to network infrastructure that's actually designed for running servers.
- trafficlight 13y ago
  I've been thinking a lot about starting a fiber ISP in my hometown and this is a big issue that's come up. I don't believe in restricting what a customer can do with their connection to internet, but I also don't want to someone to consume more resources than they are reasonably paying for. In my ideal world, I want to sell a connection to the internet that is as fast as I can reasonably deliver. I don't even want to make the distinction between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. I don't want speed to be factor. Just fast. Is there a better way to phrase the service offering instead of 'unlimited'? When I read this back to myself, it sounds like I want to have my cake and eat it to. Lots of contradictions in my mind.
  - clebio 13y ago
    Other options and terms: metering, throttling, and grade of service (QoS). You can sell 'unlimited' to everyone, but give the option of service classes. This is basically QoS, but (mis-)using it to give preferential service to high-paying customers. That's also essentially what 'business-class' is, as others are mentioning in this thread.
  - wmf 13y ago
    Some people prefer the term "unmetered" if you don't charge for traffic but there are limits on the service. You can let your network congest and use a fair queueing box so that the congestion will only be borne by the heaviest customers. Alternately you can sell something like 50 Mbps, 125 MB token bucket service which will allow people to burst to 1 Gbps for 1 second.
sigzero 13y ago
" Just don't tell me what I can do with my bandwidth that I bought." What? They absolutely can do that.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  Also, they can go around killing anyone they don't like. That doesn't mean we should approve or shouldn't advocate laws prohibiting it.
baddox 13y ago
You can just read the terms and choose whether or not to pay for the service. Unless they're omitting these things from their terms, I don't see the problem. They're telling you what you can do, and you're choosing whether to pay for it.
- WalterSear 13y ago
  If you read the article, this main issue is that they omit the definition of a 'server'.

kbn32 13y ago

Using the bandwidth you're paying for is not an "abuse". It's pointless calling even Google Fiber unlimited - as you've stated anyone using up to the limit will be restricted. "It's unlimited as long as you don't try and use it all the time!" What a load of bullshit. I'm surprised the EFF were expecting Google to maintain a higher standard than other ISPs, especially since revelations that Google allowed the NSA a backdoor into every system.

mh- 13y ago
especially since revelations that Google allowed the NSA a backdoor into every system sorry, what?
- kbn32 13y ago
  Please don't ask me to summarise the revelations of the last few months. Reading the Guardian reports on the issue would be a good starting point. Tl;dr: Google allowed the NSA unrestricted access to every Google service. No legal challenges were made.
  - mh- 13y ago
    Google allowed the NSA unrestricted access to every Google service citation, please
    - kbn32 13y ago
      http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-access-to-tech-companies-2013-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-says-nsa-has-direct-a...
      - thisisnotatest 13y ago
        (Full disclosure: I'm a Google employee.) Personally I think Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, not a traitor. However, I consider the leaks to be insufficient evidence for the conclusions you're drawing from them. Here was Google CEO Larry Page's response: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html What makes you believe one report over the other?

umsm 13y ago

I agree. Anyone that is serious about a website should get a real host.

homeomorphic 13y ago
Who decides what that is? The Internet is a network of peers, not a network of "real hosts" serving "simply clients". Without honoring that, an ISP isn't really an ISP, is it? It's more of an "Internet client facilitator".
pra 13y ago
Plz define 'real host'. My pentium s clocked at 120MHz is a damn real host.
mhurron 13y ago
And how does a 15 year old kid without a credit card do that? Not everyone throwing a webpage up is 'serious' about it. Sometimes they're learning, or it's a hobby. Google is simply continuing the tradition of making sure your users consume. If they are creating, they are not spending time looking at and clicking ads.
natch 13y ago
When did "serious" ever enter into it? I should be able to use or play with a server on the internet connection I pay for.

velodrome 13y ago

From the Google Fiber FAQ: "We are currently focused on our Fiber-to-the-home network, which is for residential consumers. For businesses located in qualified fiberhoods, we plan to introduce a small business offering shortly—stay tuned to google.com/fiber for more details." https://fiber.google.com/help/ https://fiber.google.com/help/

cracell 13y ago
Servers are not just a tool for businesses but have a lot of different uses as addressed in the article.
- bhauer 13y ago
  Indeed! I'd like to see at least one tech titan take the mantle of personal/home servers and run with it. I recently said this was something Microsoft could do [1] to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive environment. Marginalizing home servers perpetuates an insipid consume-only Internet usage model. The Internet I'd prefer to see is one where serving and consuming are both first-class features for all. [1] http://tiamat.tsotech.com/microsoft http://tiamat.tsotech.com/microsoft (section 5)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

gohrt 13y ago

If an ISP wants to provide limited Internet, it is rather easy to provide limited Internet. Is it $70/month for 1Gbps symmetric, or is it $70/month for 1Gbps symmetric with a cap of 10Gb/day? Why can't they say what they mean in their TOS, instead of falsely advertising "unlimited"? Why do they care about the content of the bits or why I am sending them?

fastball 13y ago
It's unlimited for personal use. Running a server is not usually considered "personal use", unless it's a personal server, which I'd presume they would allow.
- betterunix 13y ago
  Then advertise it as such: "Gigabit Internet, in short bursts, and only if you are using your connection like a consumer (as we define the term)!" I guess that does not have quite the same ring to it...
  - UVB-76 13y ago
    Let's ban Google from advertising a "search" product while we're at it, as the product they actually provide is much more complex than the term does justice. Let's also ban them from advertising a "mail" service, because they should also have to specify the exact nature of the POP3/IMAP/SMTP service provided right there in the headline, along with all the fair use restrictions. This is asinine pedantry. Nobody is mistaking Google's residential and business Internet connection offerings. The terms and conditions are clearly stated, and it's fairly obvious to users if they are breaching the fair use policy.
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      I don't know why, but for some reason when ever this issue comes up, this site likes to go into full on ignorant mode and pretend we don't know what the difference between personal and business class is. Most people find bandwidth charges by the gigabyte distasteful, hence no payments based on that. Don't run a warez ftp site on your personal connection and you will be fine. Worried you might be hitting their upper limit of usage on what their definition of "personal use" is? Fine then just start out of the gate by paying more for business class. It is really straightforward.

diminoten 13y ago

What exactly do you mean by, "abuse"? If your argument is that Google doesn't want someone overusing the bandwidth they've paid for, then you're saying that it's reasonable for Google/any ISP to sell you something that you then can't make full use of. If Google sells me 1gbit up/down, then I should be able to use 1gbit up/down. Pretty simple to both understand and enforce. But it's not about their network capacity - it's about forcing me to buy the more expensive business package, so I can then do exactly that thing they didn't want me doing before. It's a violation of network neutrality. They're caring which bits get sent, not the total sum of bits.

Benji_San 13y ago
Personal use as in you're not selling bandwidth to a third party. There is most likely no problem running a mail och minecraft server, but they definitely don't want you selling bandwidth to your neighbours or hosting your video streaming service on it.
- diminoten 13y ago
  Frankly, what's the problem with selling (let's call it giving for now, that keeps this simpler) bandwidth to a third party? It's just bandwidth, why does the source or content of the packets matter?
UVB-76 13y ago
You are not sold a truly unlimited connection, you do not pay anything approaching the cost of a truly unlimited connection, and Google do not provide you with a truly unlimited connection. If you want a truly unlimited connection, buy a truly unlimited connection. They cost a lot of money.

dman 13y ago

This nonsense can stop if instead of having unlimited connections we have, we have connections that clearly state what the limits are and what constitutes allowed behavior.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
They don't know yet. They want to make it up as they go.

betterunix 13y ago

Why should I not be allowed to saturate my connection? What difference does it make how I am doing that? I am paying for a connection; if I can only use it in bursts, don't advertise it as "gigabit," advertise it as "gigabit for a few moments at a time." The Internet is not a network where some nodes have different capabilities from others, or at least it was not supposed to be. This is not some ITU standard that favors large monopolies on communications service. All nodes have the same capabilities on the Internet, as far as sending and receiving packets to other nodes is concerned. TCP does not discriminate between "business" and "personal" computers. This, of course, is what makes the Internet such a fantastic system and the reason that the Internet overtook all those online services we used to use. I doubt that Google could have gotten started if the Internet were designed any other way.

nemothekid 13y ago
>All nodes have the same capabilities on the Internet, as far as sending and receiving packets to other nodes is concerned. This is clearly untrue. Just look at DOCSIS (Cable Internet). If everyone on your block is streaming netflix at the same time you all suffer, which is why some people complain about speed during peak hours. This is simply the case that the architecture being laid out to consumer is designed for specific use cases.
- betterunix 13y ago
  None of that has anything to do with the capabilities of Internet connected computers. Regardless of your connection speed or latency, you can communicate with any other computer that is connected to the Internet. That was the vision and thankfully it remains the reality of the Internet (despite the increasing threat).
  - nemothekid 13y ago
    It has everything to do with the capabilities of Internet connected computers. Your previous post asked why you couldn't saturate your connection. While we would all like to believe every node on the internet is equal, there are physical engineering limits and cost constraints we have to adhere to. Simply put, the economics simply don't make sense to give everyone in the neighborhood the ability for 24/7 1Gbps. It doesn't make sense because your grandma, won't max the connection 24/7, however she would still like for her Netflix movies to download quickly. So its been decided upon that ISP-x will only put $10 million rather than $20 million so that everyone can enjoy 1Gbps internet, just not 24/7 and all at the same time. If you do need this type of connection, then get a business class connection where you do have these guarantees, and the extra money you pay goes into making sure the infrastructure can meet your demands. However, at the end of the day it doesn't make sense to charge everyone more, for the needs of what must be 1% of the population. Remember for the most part this isn't used to stop you from SSHing into your home computer. This is stop people from using the connection in a perverse way from how it was designed. Its a simple engineering tradeoff.

tstactplsignore 13y ago

But this isn't about how much data a consumer uses- it is possible to consume large amounts of data as a client or a server. This is a greater problem about the limits on a egalitarian Internet. In the Great Firewall/SOPA/NSA/Mega-scandal world we live in, it is fundamental that users should be able to share content from private, ordinary connections. This is what the Internet was about, remember? People sharing information, not "people uploading information to Facebook/Google/Microsoft/Apple/Twitter". Decentralization is the Internet's greatest strength.

crusso 13y ago

Having owned/run an ISP I can tell you that you'll always have that small percentage of your user base that forces you to put in extra security measures, bandwidth limiters, storage limits, protective contract language, etc. The language in the contract doesn't bother me. Comcast has that language, I run my own web server, and they've never hassled me about it. Let us know when/if Google Fiber starts enforcing this contract term against people running servers for casual/personal use.

natch 13y ago

"Personal use" does not in any way imply "no servers." Nor does using/having/needing/running a server imply business use.

bluedino 13y ago
Right - which is why a personal use server such as your home music collection or Roku, or a COD server on Xbox is fine. Email for 500 people, running the next eBay, or co-locating boxes for people, isn't.
- Albuca 13y ago
  I agree. Which is why most TOS make sense when aimed that way. Sadly some ISPs find it easier to make broad legal strokes to cover their backsides later on. For example: I run my own email server from my basement. Who uses it? Me. Maybe my dog... but mainly just me. Yes, it is technically a server, so yes technically my ISP could shut me down... but with a daily throughput of what, 10mB? I doubt it.

axus 13y ago

And the Supreme Court ruling to allow warrantless pen registers wasn't intended to give the government phone records and emails for every American, but that's what the language said so here we are. If the "unlimited" connection really isn't unlimited, the contract should spell out reasonable use limits. It's as simple as that. Google's contract actually goes much further than preventing servers. It says "You agree not to misuse the Services. This includes but is not limited to using the Services for purposes that are illegal, are improper, infringe the rights of others, or adversely impact others’ enjoyment of the Services." The definition of "misuse" is completely up to Google.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

javajosh 13y ago

This ignores the possibility that a person could saturate a 1Gb connection pretty much constantly, even without servers. Let's say you're a small business owner who owns a few shops with security cameras. You might want to stream that video to your home. That said, I think it's reasonable to limit it to personal use - especially if that extends to your 2nd degree friends.

EpicEng 13y ago
And you would consider monitoring your business personal use?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

otakucode 13y ago

If you think that you can set up your own node in a p2p social networking site that keeps your data on your own box and gives you control over who accesses it, and that since it uses negligible bandwidth it would be fine, I think you're wrong. The point of banning servers is to prevent competition with other services. They want you on a business connection because they believe if you are offering data to anyone that you should be monetizing it, and if you are monetizing it, they want to be guaranteed that they can take a percentage of your revenue. We're facing a very near future where MOST employees could out-compete their employers by going independent and selling their skills online. The ban on servers guarantees this can never happen to any degree that threatens the status quo. If it did grow to that scale, ISPs would just force such people to get business connections, meter their traffic and estimate the persons revenue, and raise their prices so that an independent worker would have the same overhead as a company that has to maintain a physical building, executives, etc, etc.

mikeash 13y ago

Trying to specify what purposes you're allowed to use your connection for seems like a losing game, and is basically the root of the whole problem. Just what is "personal use"? How exactly are they going to enforce that? Instead of trying to separate different "kinds" of usage, they should just separate different amounts and traffic patterns. Want a connection you can saturate 24/7? Pay more. Want something suitable for "personal use"? It's going to have some sort of cap. That's how most products I buy are sold, whether physical products or services. The electric company doesn't sell me electricity "for personal use". The water company doesn't care if I'm taking a shower or selling car wash services. The grocery store treats me exactly the same whether I'm buying supplies to cook tonight's family dinner or supplies to make sandwiches I'm going to sell. I fill up my personal car next to commercial trucks at the gas station, and there's no "personal/commercial" option at the pump. The real problem, in my opinion, is a bizarre prevailing environment where "unlimited" service is somehow expected of ISPs. Attempts to actually charge for use encounter huge resistance from the tech community. But they can't actually provide unlimited service at the price they charge, so they end up with a ton of weird rules to limit service instead of just charging heavy users more. Charge a reasonable price per gigabyte, and problem solved. People who want to saturate their connection all day can do so, and will pay accordingly. Light users pay less. It works out for almost every other product and service in the world!

smm2000 13y ago
Electric company totally care how you plan to use electricity with different rates for consumers and businesses. What's more, businesses pay different price based on whether they are ok to reduce consumption during peak hours, reliability, etc. Also water company totally cares if you plan to sell car wash services - for one you will have to pay much higher rate for sewer.
- mikeash 13y ago
  These are all based entirely on quantity and timing of use, not the actual purpose, aren't they?
- stinky613 13y ago

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

> The restriction on servers is clearly not there to prevent you from SSHing to your home computer or to run a Minecraft server for you and your friends. Intent doesn't matter. Violating terms of service is a crime. Enforcement at ???'s whim.

biafra 13y ago
"Violating terms of service is a crime" What? In which country?
- mikeash 13y ago
  In the US. Maybe. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/rebooting-computer-crime-law-part-1-no-prison-time-for-violating-terms-of-service https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/rebooting-computer-cri...

pheleven 13y ago

It was many years ago now but I was living in an apartment complex that sold a shared connection on a wireless backhaul to a regional ISP - the ISP handled everything from building wiring to billing. My friends and I were in college and taking lots of IS/CS classes. I had a personal apache server running to test a variety of things. I never once gave anyone a link to it - it was 100% for personal amusement and learning. I had a 500k SWF video on it (which was creative commons) a few splash pages and whatnot, and that was it. The ISP was actively scanning their network for "servers" and came across mine. They played the SWF video from their office over the wireless backhaul. The video had ONE play (I kept the logs and attempted to give them to the ISP). I served ~505k, total. They turned off our internet connection and sent us a letter and bill of "overuse and abuse". They claimed we had uploaded 50mbps and were hosting illegal content and not abiding by our contract which said "no servers". While the main moral of the story is that ISP has complete morons running it (I uploaded 500k for a few miliseconds topping out at 50mbps in their eyes; funny thing was it was a 5mbps wireless backhaul), but this isn't a small ISP (Surewest) and they were actively scanning my connection for open ports, and then manually looking through content that they found on open ports (they admitted that!).

dragonwriter 13y ago

> I honestly don't see the problem with this. The central objection raised to it is that it is banning a specific set of applications, in apparent direct contravention to the FCC's Open Internet Report and Order (for which Google actively lobbied) which requires providers of fixed broadband services to permit customers the use of any legal applications and devices on the network. There is discussion of whether it falls within the scope of the reasonable network management limitation to that requirement, but given that all of the examples given in the Report and Order suggest that that exception is appropriate when various mechanisms of imposing in a use-neutral manner on the quantity of traffic to assure fairness among users of the same service when faced with load that, if all demands were met, would saturate the network, it doesn't look on its face like its an obvious candidate.

nilved 13y ago

If you pay $70/month for a gigabit connection, you have the right to saturate that connection 24/7/365.

rsingel 13y ago

One may argue then that an ISP could offer a service that bans the Bittorrent protocol under the argument that they want to prevent abuse of an otherwise unlimited connection for only $70/month to connect to a filesharing website that saturates the connection 24/7/365. In fact, that's basically what started the entire Net Neutrality debate. Comcast got busted messing with the bittorrent protocol, got slapped by the FCC for it, but then got the rules overturned in court. These new rules replace the old principles. And the new rules are clear: if you are selling broadband, you allow any legal service, application or device. If something is messing with the network, deal with indvidual user on a protocol-independent basis. If a kind of protocol is congesting the network, like say streaming video, then you may throttle ALL kinds of streaming video, inlcuding your own. Simple principles that Google used to believe in. And Google doesn't get to ignore the rules and escape criticism just because Google Fiber is cool. Principles matter.

derleth 13y ago

> When you buy a personal Google Fiber plan, you're not paying for an unmetered 1Gbps upstream/downstream fiber connection. You're paying for an unmetered 1Gbps upstream/downstream connection for personal use. "When you rent a car from Hertz, you're not paying for an unmetered vehicle to take you all around the region. You're paying for a vehicle to drive around in town and to and from the airport. It doesn't matter if this isn't mentioned in any of the advertising material or at the rental counter." There's nothing special about server traffic. Bits are bits, and if you're advertising certain bitrate for a certain price, deliver that or advertise something else.

njharman 13y ago

> for personal use. I personally use servers.