Break the Bottle

Over the weekend, I began to think that the days of the open internet are possibly numbered. I know that sounds rediculous, but we have entirely too good an example in China that demonstrates how information can be controlled.

Even though Google can be praised for its resistance to the requests of the administration to hand over customer searches, it cannot be praised for its work in China where it helps the government censure searches.

As fast as things are changing in the technology sector, its hard to imagine that our access to a free world wide internet is actually not a right.

But, already there are more and more statements by major telecommunication executives publicly saying that something has to be done, or their profits will suffer.

Here is a story that may point the way for the future of the free internet.

Rumours Mount over Googles Internet Plan
By Benjamin Cohen

Google is working on a project to create its own global internet protocol (IP) network, a private alternative to the internet controlled by the search giant, according to sources who are in commercial negotiation with the company.

Last month, Google placed job advertisements in America and the British national press for "Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in...identification, selection, and negotiation of dark fibre contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network".

Dark fibre is the remnants of late 1990s internet boom where American web companies laid down fibre optic cables in preparation for high speed internet delivery. Following the downturn in the technology sector during the early 2000s, the installation process for many of these networks was left incomplete.

This has resulted in a usable network of cables spread across the United States that have never been switched on. By purchasing the dark fibre, Google would in effect be able to acquire a ready made internet network that they could control.

Late last year, Google purchased a 270,000sq ft telecom interconnection facilities in New York. It is believed that from here, Google plans to link up and power the dark fibre system and turn it into a working internet network of its own.

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Google has long been rumoured to be planning to launch a PC to retail for less than $100. The Google computers are likely to be low-grade machines that require a connection to Google to be able to perform functions such as word processing and spreadsheet manipulations.

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The technology industry has also been alive with talk that the Google $100 machines will be less like a standard home PC and more like a television: in effect, one of the first convergent devices betweem the internet and television."

more

One of the key components of a functioning earthfamily,

and indeed, a significant part of the thesis of earthfamilyalpha,

is this,

With the advent of advanced global communication, new forms of social contract can be created which transcend the geographic state. These new cybercoops or cyberstates will bring humankind to higher levels of cooperation and understanding.

If these advanced forms of communication are contracted,

Then global earthfamilies can be stopped,

And we can all go back to our controlled villages and dukedoms.

Personally, I think the Genie is out of the bottle.

But, now, I must also hope that the Genie

doesn't create her own.

We should probably break the bottle.

To be sure.


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genie out of the bottle from The Random Times