LWN: Comments on "Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)"

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

Cyberax — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 00:00:10 +0000

> If I'm running a website, why should I have to track where people are connecting to me are from? I'm ALREADY paying for bandwith with my ISP.
For consumer connections? Hardly.

Business connections are there for good reasons. And "maximum profit by tiering services" is not the only one.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

dlang — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 22:59:27 +0000

> if you're pushing enough traffic to visibly help saturate 10Gb peering links, you're effectively DoS'ing that ISP's connection on the other side of that network. Why *shouldn't* that ISP require you to help upgrade the connectivity path?

remember, it's the ISP's customers who decide they want the data, not the website.

If I'm running a website, why should I have to track where people are connecting to me are from? I'm ALREADY paying for bandwith with my ISP.

let's flip this around a bit. If you think the problem is that Google is pushing too much data to Comcast customers, imagine the outrage that you would hear if Google were to announce that they were going to throttle connections to Comcast, giving Comcast customers worse service unless Comcast agrees to pay Google for the privilege.

After all, it's the Comcast customers who are creating the demand on the Google servers, causing Google to have to spend money on hardware and Internet connections.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

deepfire — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 18:07:48 +0000

Sounds very sensible!

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

raven667 — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:20:50 +0000

This all kind of sounds like the billing model for phone service, with residential, business, toll-free, and premium-rate services where one of the parties is billed on a per-connection, per-application basis, and where the telecom provider is a middleman in all business transactions using the network. This sounds like a reintroduction of toll-free billing where the recipient of the connection is billed per-connection and the initiator of the connection is just billed a monthly subscription rate.

What's old is new again 8-)

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

raven667 — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:15:05 +0000

> if you're pushing enough traffic to visibly help saturate 10Gb peering links, you're effectively DoS'ing that ISP's

With traffic that the customer requested. Isn't it in the best interest of the ISP to provision enough resource to cover their customers requests, and charge appropriately? The data is not being pushed, it is being pulled.

> CDNs seek to put their own hardware on the near side of these links; it's cheaper

Indeed. It's cheaper for everyone involved, but if those CDNs carry competing data that the ISP also sells, such as video, then the ISPs have shown willingness to deny access and force the competing CDNs traffic through a slower, congested and more expensive path so as to be able to demonstrate better service with their in-house offering. This was the essence of the fight between Netflix and Comcast, Comcast refused to allow Netflix to install caches, at Netflix's own expense, that would improve performance for Comcast users and reduce overall network load for Comcast because that would compete with their CableTV and VOD offerings.

Is that the innovative network of the future you want?

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

filteredperception — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:47:10 +0000

and just because threading is a bit hard to see, my +1 goes to pizza's comment that I replied to.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

filteredperception — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:44:57 +0000

disclosure: complainant here
"
if you're pushing enough traffic to visibly help saturate 10Gb peering links, you're effectively DoS'ing that ISP's connection on the other side of that network. Why *shouldn't* that ISP require you to help upgrade the connectivity path?
"

My response to this kind of logic flows to the whole "unlimited" marketing terms having been some orwellianly stupid level of socially acceptable fraudulent advertising for the last decade. Hopefully, and I think this may be true, enough people are no longer completely mystified by what the internet is or how it basically works. As such, let's stop lying to everyone. Deal? (paraphrased: there is a limit, and I want to know it, to know how excited I really should be by the technology)

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

filteredperception — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:33:29 +0000

+1 (from the complainant in the case)

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

mikemol — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:38:32 +0000

> However, if you go back and look at the problem that "Net Neutrality" was started to oppose, it's not a political solution to a technical problem, it's a political restraint on an unfair money grab on the part of some large ISPs.

*This* is exactly what I was referring to when I was talking about a ham-handed, political solution to what is ultimately a technical and market problem.

> If I pay my ISP for my connection, and you pay your ISP for your connection, why should I have to pay your ISP (or why should you have to pay my ISP) for the privilage of sending traffic between us?

Because the ISP owns the network, and if you're pushing enough traffic to visibly help saturate 10Gb peering links, you're effectively DoS'ing that ISP's connection on the other side of that network. Why *shouldn't* that ISP require you to help upgrade the connectivity path? The money has to come from somewhere. This is also why CDNs seek to put their own hardware on the near side of these links; it's cheaper to pay someone to host a rack than to help pay to trench new fiber between Chicago and Denver.

And if you're not saturating peering links, you really aren't someone anyone cares about for these issues, and you're applying small-scale-operator perspectives to large-scale-operator problems.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

dlang — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 06:29:04 +0000

> "Net Neutrality" is an attempt at implementing a ham-handed, political solution to what is ultimately a technical and market problem.

that depends on how you define "Net Neutrality"

If you define it, as some people here have, as having no rules on what can be done with a connection, then you are correct.

However, if you go back and look at the problem that "Net Neutrality" was started to oppose, it's not a political solution to a technical problem, it's a political restraint on an unfair money grab on the part of some large ISPs.

If I pay my ISP for my connection, and you pay your ISP for your connection, why should I have to pay your ISP (or why should you have to pay my ISP) for the privilage of sending traffic between us?

That is what some ISPs were advocating should be the case. This is what the term "Network Neutrality" meant before people started distorting it.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

mikemol — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 05:11:10 +0000

He should go read the other comments that talk about people gaming the system, then.

Networks are very, very complex beasts on their own. Throw in millions of people's individually unique usage patterns, and the behavior of that complex system becomes an impossible thing to precisely describe.

As a consequence, network operators deal in abstractions where such are useful. Again, though, the more you try to take those abstractions and make them more precise, the more you try to reach an impossible degree of complexity, and the more customers spend as they confuse "wants" for "needs".

If I wanted to get a 10GbE network connection to my home, I could. It'd cost me a pretty penny in installation costs, but it's doable; I'd have to pay someone to either bury or hang single-mode fiber between me and an L3 center about three miles away on the other side of downtown. And then I'd have to pay to have (and keep) it lit. And then I'd have to pay for IP addresses. And transit. And support. Every single one of those things you mention.

There's a reason it's expensive, and there's a reason you don't see those kind of connections land on every home.

Instead, you have organizations like Comcast, RoadRunner and AT&T who move to the other extreme and abstract things as broadly as possible. As a consequence, they can provide oodles of bandwith *cheap*. There are a ton of guarantees you don't get, and services you're not promised, but you get a service that's "good enough" for the vast majority of people (much as we might prefer people to move out of centralized services...), and you get the option to pay for a higher tier that gets you preferred status on the network (no complaints about bandwidth consumption, and you even get OB port 25 unblocked), red carpet treatment in support (call drop? they call me back.), and they're *happy* to send out a tech to swap out a modem, tune attenuation or replace a line if you're not getting 24/7 connectivity.

Now, let's say the traditional last-mile providers started offering these things a la cart. Most people would *hate* it; people want to have choice in principle, but when faced with it they either buy it all, cheap out and don't buy what they need, or agonize under information overload. (Your average user isn't going to know what $some_feature is, and will blame the ISP when they face problems owing to their own ignorance. I expect this is why Comcast _only_ provides on-link (not routed) IPv4 subnets.)

And if last-mile providers did offer a la cart services, there would be general complaints about how the evil ISPs are "nickle-and-diming" their customers.

As for bandwidth caps and other things that are "ripe" for abuse. That's theory. Practice varies. Comcast isn't abusing it...at least not in a way that's visible around here. Yes, they were seriously nasty back in the bad old days of DPI and anti-torrenting behavior, but every Comcast tech I've interacted with, from netops on down to the contractor testing my home connection, is chiefly interested in building the best network they can.

Individuals, communities and corporations _always_ work around the limitations set forth by current networks, if they're allowed to. Users got bittorrent to deal with asynchronous network connections. Companies like Akami and Limelight seek to place their own distribution-point equipment within the boundaries of major networks, to reduce network-boundary congestion. And the owners of those networks rightly charge them for the privilege, infra and support costs that go with those arrangements.

"Net Neutrality" is an attempt at implementing a ham-handed, political solution to what is ultimately a technical and market problem. To put in place a net neutrality mandate would be to lock the shape of the network into the current status quo...unless you put in enough caveats and flexibility that it's meaningless and just another "we have to run this by a political committee before we can implement it." And that's not a good place to be.

The Internet is not mature, and I should hope it never ceases to be the hotbed of innovation and creativity it's been over the last thirty years. But a Net Neutrality mandate would be the biggest stifler of creativity it's ever seen.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

raven667 — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 03:48:26 +0000

That's now how I read russell's comment. The problem is not tiered service with different price points, that's generally acceptable to everyone, it's how those tiers are defined and enforced. Instead of defining tiers based on the _contents_ of the traffic or the intent of the subscriber, as is done when banning "servers", define the tiers based on bandwidth, latency, public IPs, support, uptime, etc. Bandwidth caps may be another technique but they are ripe for abuse by providers which also offer high-bandwidth video services, unless using the providers own video service also counted against the cap.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

rqosa — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:39:22 +0000

> Decentralization? Can someone tell me which is more speedy on eMule, pornography or Linux distributions.

It sounds like you're trying to imply that decentralized network applications are somehow inherently a bad thing. Why?

The way I see it, it's the centralized ones that are inherently bad, partly because of having a single point of failure, but much more importantly because of being in a single administrative domain. Someone having administrative control over a service that others rely on tends to as a consequence give them power over those other people (and the more users the service has, the more power the administrators have) — but one of the core principles of FLOSS is that people should not have power over other people. I'd go so far as to say that the exercise of power over other people is the very definition of evil.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

mikemol — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:18:34 +0000

"Business class" service exists to allow lesser-tiered services that offer lower prices for optimizable use cases.

If you're advocating that there not be a distinction in services, and that all classes be structured as business class is, you're advocating that there not be *residential-class* services. Say goodbye to the discounts residential subscribers enjoy; resources will necessarily be spread thinner.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

maxiaojun — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 17:42:12 +0000

Decentralization? Can someone tell me which is more speedy on eMule, pornography or Linux distributions.

Given the fact that many people out there actively trying to find loopholes in laws and ToS is exactly the reason why every ToS sounds "evil".

And some people never understand the fact the services beside raw fiber also costs much money. Check the term "service sector" in the sense of economics.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

filteredperception — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 03:00:01 +0000

dmc here. Ok, for those too lazy to RTFM(anifesto), here is the short backstory on my 'subscriberness'. Which I think is entirely stupid to even consider. Ok, whatever, person #2 comes along and refiles same complaint, whatever...

when I filed the sub-1000 character FCC form-2000F complaint on September 1st, 2012, I had paid $10, and either already, or within a couple weeks, my 'fiberhood' reached its threshold to be assured service. That complaint on 9/1/2012 was eventually answered with a referral to the Kansas Attorney General. I filed the 53 page complaint with them on October 24th, 2012, still a paid pre-subscriber, or rather, one step beyond as I had chosen of the 3 options, the $70/month plan. I had also submitted a complaint through the official fibersupport web-mail-form thing. I was given an automated reply by email from the "google fiber team" that my issue would be addressed "soon". I to this day have never heard a response from that. I only got my $10 refunded 2 weeks ago, a solid 6-7 months after I had moved from Kansas City to Lawrence.

I also in a videolog on youtube mention that the FCC basically lied to me repeatedly early on. At least twice I was told by humans that they had talked to their supervisor, and would get a call back in 2 weeks, and never did, until many weeks later both times I started pestering them again. I'm tinfoil hat enough to believe that SnowdenPRISMCrash, and its reminder about massive-scale wateringhole attacks, is what laid the foundation for the traction this story has finally received.

I don't know how long Google and the FCC expected me to just sit by and have my complaint completely ignored before I moved on. Did I have standing to make the complaint, but then lost it somehow? Dunno. Seems utterly pointless to me, as it can't be that long before person #2 just files the same complaint and doesn't have that argument on the table. Whatever...

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

russell — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 02:22:45 +0000

There should not be such a thing as business-class. That's rubbish. The pipe should be sold according to uptime, support, and volume. Not what the data is.

Someone doesn't know what "server" means

davecb — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 01:50:08 +0000

I suspect a business manager wrote the contract terms and perhaps checked them with a lawyer. Alas, like a former PHB boss of mine, he knew the word "server" but not what it actually meant, so he missed what to us were glaringly obvious problems.

My PHB was a "former" boss in more than just the obvious sense: he later lost the company to a collection of enraged investors (;-))

The FAQ was probably written by an engineer and checked by everybody.

--dave

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

dvdeug — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 00:38:21 +0000

The article you link to on laches is particular; if one party in a contract fails to do something to the other party, then laches are incurred. It says nothing about if one person does something to someone else who may or may be under the same or similar contract.

The example of the landlord is completely analogous to that of the ISP that doesn't look for servers on their network, and only responds when they're brought to the ISPs attention.

Ultimately, my problem is that these legal arguments aren't improving anything. The ISPs, by whatever means, are not going to be happy about people using residential service to host servers. If you force their hand, they're not going to explicitly okay your SSH server; they're going to search it out and crack down on it. One way or the other, they're going to deal with the 0.01% of bandwidth users; it would be nice to have an explicit statement in the contract that "excessive use of bandwidth may get you limited or your contract canceled, at the ISP's discretion" but it's going to happen.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

xtifr — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 00:00:50 +0000

Why should terms that are not uniformly enforced become unenforceable?

The doctrine of laches.

Note, however, that laches would only apply if they chose to ignore the situation, which would require them being aware of it. Your example of the landlord fails because "uniformly enforced" simply means they have to be consistent. They don't have to regular searches, but if they do notice a pet and deliberately ignore it, that may undermine later attempts at enforcing the rule.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

xtifr — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 23:49:28 +0000

Indeed, anyone who has spent more than a few minutes at Groklaw should be familiar with the terms "estoppel" and "laches". If Google's FAQ wouldn't constitute a case of promissory estoppel, then I don't know what would.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

lordsutch — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:29:13 +0000

The FAQ may not be legally binding, but if there is a legal dispute the FAQ can certainly be introduced into evidence in your defense if Google (or any other ISP similarly situated) were to decide to enforce the TOS provision in a way that was contrary to the FAQ. Not to mention that the FTC and state regulators would have a cause of action against Google (or any other ISP) for false advertising in that event.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

KGranade — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 20:33:22 +0000

Perhaps of interest, pagekite.net, a reverse-proxy over ssl service.
From the ISP point of view it's a user-initiated ssl connection.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

rahvin — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 19:04:49 +0000

I didn't argue the language couldn't be cleaned up, just that you can't be specific about any one thing because there is a counter example of the exact same use not causing the same problems. I don't really like the blanket statements and lack of enforcement, but they aren't government, they are allowed to selectively enforce whatever rule they want to create.

My argument has been and remains the abuse of the term "network neutrality" to include such silly things as peering arrangements between Tier 1/2 providers and a provider having tiered services for commercial/residential uses.

My views fall very in line with the article link I posted at the bottom in fact. In other words, Google has a lot of room for improvement but this particular case isn't network neutrality and people need to stop calling every little thing they don't like network neutrality.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

pizza — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:41:59 +0000

> This is why it's impossible for them to come up with a list of acceptable/unacceptable and they are forced into the situation of just out right banning everything and then only targeting users that cause the problems.

In other words, by default, a majority of their users will be technically in violation of the ToS the moment their connection is lit up.

If Google wants to reserve the right to ban "bad" stuff then they should just out and say that, including some non-exclusive examples, or at least formally carve out exceptions for stuff that everyone and their grandmother could legitimately have running.

For example:

> you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection, use your Google Fiber account to provide a large number of people with Internet access, or use your Google Fiber account to provide commercial services to third parties.

could become:

> Google Fibre reserves the right to deny you service or request a change of terms if your use of the network places excessive demands on it or significantly degrades our ability to provide a consistent level of service to other users, if you use your Google Fiber account to provide a large number of people with Internet access, or if you use your Google Fiber account to provide commercial services to third parties.

And presto, my objections go away, because they are describing unacceptable behavior in terms of its effect, rather than a blanket ban on stuff they intend to ignore anyway.

(Thanks to 'kawa' over at the verge for that proposed text -- http://www.theverge.com/users/kawa)

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

rahvin — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:56:52 +0000

There is a decent counter point to this possibly astroturfed story, Karl wrote a rather thorough rebuttal at broadbandreports.com.

As a warning, Karl is rather opinionated and it comes through in his writing rather clearly where his bias lies. I'd also like to point out that according to what Google replied to the FCC Douglas McClendon does not subscribe to Google Fiber nor is he even in a city that has Google Fiber.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Google-Fiber-Server-Ne...

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

rahvin — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:49:06 +0000

Good description, it was far more concise than my own. The problem is that there have been so many people abusing the term that people have begun to forget what it really was and is about. For example the Cogent/Comcast traffic dispute where Cogent claimed Comcast wanted to charge them for unbalanced traffic flows had something to do with network neutrality.

If Comcast started throttling and degrading connections to Google while giving priority routing to Bing because Bing paid them money that would qualify as network neutrality.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

rahvin — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:43:18 +0000

Just like I said previously, for any scenario of unacceptable (from the point of view of increasing support costs) that makes sense you can come up with a counter example that doesn't meet their(perceived) goal that is doing exactly the same thing. This is why it's impossible for them to come up with a list of acceptable/unacceptable and they are forced into the situation of just out right banning everything and then only targeting users that cause the problems.

There is simply no way to create a list of things that will cause problems because the very same activity done in a different way wouldn't cause problems. You could end up with a 1000 page document that still doesn't cover every scenario and no one would read it anyway.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

filteredperception — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:32:35 +0000

"we should revert the patch"

I guess I must have missed the entry in the changelog go by... :)

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

lieb — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:01:09 +0000

In the end the only way to deal with this is to rollback badly thought out but profitable deregulation. When I started in the internet business it was called ArpaNet and there was regulation in place called "common carrier". That regulation, like Glass-Steagle for banks, put a barrier between "products" and the services provided to move products. The phone company could only provide connectivity.

For any of these ISPs, we should revert the patch to the law that allowed them to also serve up content. If Google wants to offer a fiber network as a way to improve network access, they should do it as a completely separate company with no ties whatsoever to content. Anything else will result in the mess we have because the temptation to monopoly for greed's sake is too great without regulatory restraint. Simply remove the temptation from the guys who string the fiber so they can concentrate on what their business task should be, to build out and maintain a cost competitive communications service.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

dlthomas — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 15:49:31 +0000

There's arguably a difference when the government is only allowing a few companies (if you're lucky) the ability to dig up the road and run connections everywhere. I typically have more than 3 choices who I rent from.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

raven667 — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 15:23:45 +0000

The fact that the ISP pays for anti-virus software to give away to subscribers should be evidence that their real concern is as stated by khim, they want to reduce complaints about traffic from their subscribers.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

raven667 — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 15:08:51 +0000

While that is one small aspect, the fact that there has been price discrimination between "residential" and "business" service with different ToS around home servers since broadband was invented was not what created the call for Network Neutrality. What caused the call for Network Neutrality were threats by the major consumer ISPs to intentionally degrade service to major web video services such as Netflix, which compete with their own paid-TV offerings, unless the ISP was paid a protection fee. Many felt that this would set a bad precedent for ISPs to go all-in on content inspection and application-based billing where any service offered on the Internet would be blocked or degraded to uselessness and require special fees to make work, especially if it competed with a service the ISP offered.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

Cyberax — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 14:51:54 +0000

Net neutrality has NOTHING to do with the receiver of the abuse complaints. And by ARIN rules it's the owner of the netblock, i.e. the ISP.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

krake — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 14:27:00 +0000

"Limiting traffic is just one part. It does nothing for abuse complaints, which are much worse."

Sure, but that is because there is no network neutrality.

In the case of the ISP as a neutral third party, any such complaints would go to the hoster of the service.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

pizza — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 13:37:02 +0000

>As was already explained above they are not trying to save bandwidth (they have tons of bandwidth). They want to avoid complains. As long as your service is not falling in category which can lead to complains to ISP - it's not server as far as Google is concerned.

That may be their intention, but it's certainly not what is written. :)

Unfortunately Google doesn't have any concrete plans for a "business-class" offering, so if you want (or need) to run a server of any sort, Google Fiber is simply not an option. Nobody is going to risk their business/livelihood by relying on their ISP to not enforce the ToS.

...I'm currently paying Comcast for a "business" connection. They charge me about double their residential rate, but it doesn't cost *them* any more to provide the basic pipe. They do bundle some value-add stuff (five email accounts instead of one, hosted on exchange, and a free antivirus license, big whoop) and they have a much better support staffing ratio.

But at the end of the day, I'm paying them double so I can have an unfiltered static IP.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

khim — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 11:58:36 +0000

Something as simple as hosting a blog (even with externally-served ads) is considered commercial purposes.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Even simple blog can lead to complains.

So is hosting a portfolio site for your artwork.

That's basically a landmine.

So is backing up your office stuff to a "server" at home.

That one is probably fine.

So is hosting a web page with a "donate money via paypal" link on it.

Definitely a problem.

As was already explained above they are not trying to save bandwidth (they have tons of bandwidth). They want to avoid complains. As long as your service is not falling in category which can lead to complains to ISP - it's not server as far as Google is concerned.

That's why there will never be a clarification in TOS: what is "server" and what is not "server" lawmakers of your jurisdiction are deciding, not Google.

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

dvdeug — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 11:52:44 +0000

Why should terms that are not uniformly enforced become unenforceable? Unlike a law, you have a choice about which ISP you use; if you're worried about it, make sure you sign a contract that permits what you do.

Forcing them to uniformly enforce it doesn't win you anything. It'll cost them money (and thus you money) to chase down every server, and they may ignore multiplayer games and torrents because they're popular enough, but you'll lose your mail server and SSH server definitely.

(More generally, it seems like a stupid rule. A landlord can't throw someone out for violating the no pets rule unless they do regular searches for pets? They can't turn a blind eye to a pet not causing any problems; can they even rewrite the contract for someone like that?)

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

Wol — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 07:27:02 +0000

My home system runs postfix. It hosts a full-blown server for household internal use. But I couldn't get it to upload mail to my mail provider so all my email clients need to be configured to do that themselves.

So it looks like I would be in breach of Google's TOS, yet my server is incapable of originating network traffic ...

Cheers,
Wol

Now That It’s in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality (Wired)

Otus — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 07:05:46 +0000

I don't know about US contract law, but shouldn't terms of service that are
not uniformly enforced become unenforcable?

Terms that they put in there just in case someone starts behaving badly –
while ignoring that a large percentage of their users breaks them – are a
slippery slope. They could see you are a top 0.01% bandwidth user because
you have Netflix on 24/7, consider the costs, and then decide to kick you
for having a private mail server that handles <10 mails a day. Or hosting a
multiplayer game, Torrenting a Linux distro, running an SSH server to log in
from work, etc.