Open Source

Larry Page is very different from Eric Schmidt, consequently he will be a completely different Google CEO.

• Mr. Page is the internal hardliner and the main driving force behind Google, providing the uber-ambition, the "open" philosophy/ideology zeal, the passion-for-innovation, and the impatient, aggressive take-no-prisoners approach to most everything Google does.
• Mr. Page has always been the penultimate power, final decision-maker and driving force inside Google behind the scenes.
• Mr. Schmidt has been the co-founders' public face and very able implementer and businessman.

The biggest difference people will notice will be external relations.

First, Schmidt and Page are polar opposites when it comes to external relations.

Julian Assange's reprehensible Wikileaks data breaches of secret, private and proprietary information to the web, endangering lives, diplomacy and peace, has thrust to the forefront of public debate: what are the responsible boundaries of an "Open Internet?"

• It is an especially timely debate given that the FCC is proposing an "Open Internet Order" for FCC decision on December 21st, and given that the FCC is trying to officially define what an "open Internet" is for the first time, in order to restrict what competitive broadband Internet providers can and cannot do.

It is instructive that the term "open Internet" is found nowhere in law.

Julian Assange's likely-criminal dissemination of many nations' secret national security information via Wikileaks --  in posting secret, proprietary, and private information that clearly endangers lives, diplomacy and peace -- has exposed one of the darkest sides of the broad open Internet movement, which pushes radical transparency, and general disrespect for secrets, confidentiality, privacy, and intellectual property -- to varying degrees.

• Assange tries to justify his reckless, irresponsible and destructive acts by claiming to "Keep Governments Open," without bothering to explain the problem his destructive acts are supposed to solve.

It ironic that the Open Internet Coalition is lobbying the FCC hard now to have the Government force Title II telecom utility regulation on private competitive broadband companies in the name of "openness" -- when there is no identifiable or proven problem to solve.

It is especially ironic that leading corporate proponents of the Open Internet Coalition have been so slow to condemn the obvious harm and criminality of Assange's destructive "open" Wikileaks, but are so quick to condemn competitive broadband companies for not being "open" enough -- when the coalition's  definition of "open" is fluid, and when the coalition has no evidence that broadband providers are not being "open."

If it is now so clear that Assange's Wikileaks are a serious problem, why did it take three massive wikileaks over a period of several months for Open Internet member:

Hackers have discovered a new serious security vulnerability in certain Android smartphones that is not easily or quickly patched because of Android's open and fragmented platform -- per Joseph Menn's report in the FT.

• Specifically an HTC Android browser vulnerability enables a hacker to take broad control of an Android device.

The potential security implications of this are even more serious than they first appear.

Apple's CEO Steve Jobs is wise to publicly debunk Google's claim that: Google defines "openness" (aka -- good), and Apple defines "closedness" (aka -- evil).

• As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said: Google's concept of "openness" is "much easier to understand by opposition" so he defined Google's approach as the "inverse" of Apple's.

Google is right that they are the inverse/opposite of Apple, but not in the way that Google claims -- being open/neutral vs. being closed.

The link is here to: "Googleopoly VI -- How Google is Monopolizing Consumer Internet Media and Threatening a Price Deflationary Spiral and Major Job Losses in a Trillion Dollar Sector" -- It is a 41 page PowerPoint presentation with 18 pages of pictorial analysis.

Below is the Executive Summary: (The PDF link is here.)

Executive Summary

Googleopoly VI – Seeing the Big Picture: How Google is Monopolizing Consumer Internet Media

And Threatening a Price Deflationary Spiral & Major Job Losses in a $Trillion Sector

By Scott Cleland* President of Precursor LLC, September 13, 2010

The top U.S. spy agency for mapping announced a no-bid digital mapping contract with Google on August 19th. However, after media inquiries, the agency modified the contract's no-bid format, but made clear "the agency's intention to award the contract to Google without entertaining competitive bids" -- per a Fox News story by James Rosen.

• Wow. There are large and broad implications of this remarkable new development for: privacy, security, antitrust, Google's international business, and Government oversight.
• The fact that this was announced in late August, when precious few are paying attention, should heighten everyone's Big Brother Inc. antennae.

Has anyone in a position of authority or oversight even begun to think through the irony and stupidity of contracting out the Nation's most sensitive intelligence gathering and analysis function to a company that has:

To help you better picture how Google leverages its search advertising monopoly via anti-competitive search discrimination in favor of Google information, products and services... and to better connect Google's monopolization strategy with the myriad of current Google actions to embrace and extend its monopoly... please see this one-page chart/PDF: "Google-opolization Through Anti-competitive Search Discrimination." 

For those who really want to understand Google's strategy and how it all fits together, please read and study this one-page chart/PDF, because much valuable work and insight has gone into providing everyone with a big picture conceptualization of Google's monopolization of digital information distribution and the Internet itself.

• The purpose of the one-page chart is to flesh out the skeletal understanding that many have about Google and its anti-competitive actions.
• While the chart is visually packed with information that many may find difficult to unpack or digest, the chart itself is an apt metaphor for both how extensive and powerful Google's monopolization strategy is,  and also how difficult it is for all of us to get our head around all the Google information, products and services Google uses to reinforce and extend its un-precedented market power over much of the world's digital information economy.

Please contact me with any ideas of how to make this more clear or if there is anything I have missed -- this is a work in progress.

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Google strongly legitimized the problem of "search neutrality" in arguing in detail in an FT op-ed today why Google's search should not be neutral. 

Skype, one of the high priests of the net neutrality movement, that preaches for Title II monopoly regulation of all the broadband providers it already rides upon for free, has been caught in the act of being blatantly unfaithful to its widely-professed net neutrality principles, by blocking interconnectivity to Fring! 

• Arstechnica and The Hill have both flagged Skype's hypocrisy and infidelity to its supposed net neutrality and openness principles in blocking mobile video calling competitor Fring from access to Skype's dominant network of a ~half-billion interconnected users.  

  Now we know that Skype's proclaimed principled stance for net neutrality and openness was really just a cynical PR and lobbying campaign of crony capitalism, and political cover for an industrial policy where the FCC picks Skype, Google Android, and Amazon Kindle as the "dumb pipe" market winners, and all broadband providers as the "dumb pipe" market losers.

  Skype's "do as I say not as I do" stance is particularly hypocritical because of Skype's dominant size relative to Fring, in that Skype has about a half billion users and is "responsible for 12% of global international calling minutes" per Skype.