Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/30/45729 ... neutrality

Who would've seen that coming, eh?

I think Google recently removed 'not' from their vision statement.

Their motto is almost as ironic as the one for this site.

Also, before the pedants arrive, I know it's neither their motto nor their vision statement.

Nor is this about Net Neutrality, which (I believe) involves packet prioritisation, although the term has got broader as time has gone by.

You'd be surprised.

Still, though, it's pretty shitty.
"Have a 1Gb connection!"
"Thanks!"
"Wait, you're using too much of your 1Gb connection!"

Um... You know that page agrees with Curio, right?

Guess who read it as "former" rather than "formal"?

OMGPWNLOL

Being a super-pedant, that means they need to remove n't from their motto, rather than not.

Being a mega-pedant, removing the whole word 'don't' would be a better idea, as having the word 'do' before 'be' is rather redundant.

Unless you're were the song-writer for Doop by Doop.

Or a stoner.

I hate you guys.

Whilst it states on Wiki that it is their motto, it also states that it isn't officially in any of their stuff other than an old prospectus or something.

I love that you're so much of a pedant, you're actually working hard to criticise yourself here.

I'm not actually sure that I'd regard this change of policy as "evil". If their policy was "Don't ever do anything that is even slightly morally dubious" then people might have a point. But by using the word "evil" they've given themselves a fair bit of wiggle room I think.

Net neutrality is "treat all packets equally", which casts a wider net than the way it's typically used (don't prioritise packets from your commercial partners). Banning an entire class of packet (by telling people not to run servers) is a breach of the more formal definition.

I'm not sure I'm bothered about this. As DocG says, it's a breach of the formal definition of net neutrality but, it seems to me, it's more about Google drawing a line between home and commercial internet connections which I don't begrudge them. If they literally allow these connections to be used for anything then load of businesses could start hosting commercial websites and services off these accounts which could suck down so much bandwidth as to affect the service for personal users. If that constitutes a climb-down from what they previously said (I haven't looked into it so don't know for sure) then yeah, they should be embarrassed not to have thought through their original comments properly; but I understand the need for separating these 'types' of traffic so they can provision their network properly. The more popular understanding of net neutrality (i.e. indiscriminately routing content no matter where or who it's coming from) is the aspect I'd be concerned about personally.

Note that above uninformed blather assumes that loads of commercial companies setting up shop on the service would actually stand a chance of negatively impacting other users. If Google are so swimming in bandwidth that this isn't a practical concern then it would be more of a dick move. It depends to an extent on how they sold the service; was it designed and marketed specifically for home users or were businesses also encouraged to jump on it?

Defining a "server" is tricky, though.

Basically they need to put a cap on the residential service, and not on the business service (and let normal people buy the business service if they want).

I assuming that's exactly what they're trying to do here but they've not only worded it so badly in the T&Cs but they haven't bothered to describe to anyone exactly what separation they're trying to make which is adding to the rage.

Exactly. With a personal data cap it is similar to if Ryanair started charging fat people more to fly than thin people. I wouldn't begrudge them that. I would however begrudge them charging two otherwise identical people differently because one of them was wearing blue shoes.

Before they tell me to lose weight they can jolly.well make everyone pre-order.snacks and drinks.

And apply the carry-on rules properly. and stop fucking putting cabin equipment in the first and last few rows of carry-on space. That.makes me far more angry than is sensible.