As part of Google's previously announced plan to make the Web faster, Google announced yesterday a Google engineering alternative system to the Internet's current core, the Domain Name System or DNS. 

• Google believes that Google's new addressing system is faster and more secure than the current Internet addressing system, which is run by the independent Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) and which is essentially the Internet's de facto "phone book." 

This is a big deal. Google is essentially saying it can do a better faster job for the Internet than the current ICANN can. Listen to ICANN's self description:

The reality of vibrant competition in every segment of the proposed Comcast-NBCU joint venture, combined with the companies' proactive public interest commitments, will pave the way for ultimate Government approval of this deal.

Vociferous anti-business opponents like FreePress have preemptively kicked up a lot of dust about this proposed deal, but when FreePress' initial contrived dust cloud settles -- the reality of competitive facts will ultimately drive the process. 

Craig Newmark of Craigslist, a leading net neutrality proponent, posted another strong support of net neutrality on Huffington Post where he shared Consumer Reports definition of net neutrality.

In another tech elite case of "Do as I say, not as I do," it is particularly ironic that Mr. Newmark is publicly championing how important it is for dominant players to not block traffic on the Internet, at the same time, Craigslist, the most dominant online classified ad site in the U.S., is blatantly blocking a new mashup called Flippity and "every single project built on Yahoo Pipes," per TechCrunch's post yesterday:

• "Craigslist Blocks Yahoo Pipes After Dev Shows Craig His New Mashup." 

Why is the FCC changing its current consensus net neutrality principle #4 that consumers are entitled to competition among service providers, application providers and content providers, to a non-consensus principle in the FCC's Open Internet proposed regulations that consumers are no longer entitled to applications or content competition online?

Google is a munificent Internet ruler to allow a "handful" of "clueful" people to work outside of Google.     

IDG reports in the article "Google resists in hiring some industry stars" that:

• "Google holds back from hiring some people it believes are doing good work because it's better for the Internet industry not to concentrate too much talent in one place." 
• Bradley Horowitz, a Google VP, told the Supernova conference:
  • "Recently I was having a discussion with an engineer at Google, and I pointed out a handful of people that I thought were clueful in the industry, and I proposed perhaps we should hire these people," Horowitz said. "He said that these people were actually important to have outside of Google. ... It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google."

The clueless Goobris implications here are that:

Add StudioBriefing.net to the list of companies like TradeComet and Foundem that have been snuffed out by Google's arbitrary exercise of its search advertising monopoly power to pick what Internet content lives or dies.   

In an 11-28-09 letter to its readers, StudioBriefing.net, the blog arm of "the longest-running entertainment-industry publication on the Web," had "no alternative but to shut down" because Google arbitrarily removed them from their Internet search results and from running Adwords advertising. 

Read StudioBriefing.net's letter and the similar complaints by TradeComet and Foundem, to appreciate Google's monopoly power, arbitrary exercise of it, and its power to literally snuff out Internet content companies that do not comply with Google's opaque edicts.

Isn't what Google has done to Studio-Briefing.net, TradeComet and Foundem, exactly the type of non-neutral anti-competitive behavior that Google claims to oppose in its vocal support of net neutrality legislation/regulation for their competitors?

Kudos to the NCTA for putting the universal broadband focus where it should be -- on broadband adoption, and especially adoption where it can have immediate and maximum impact, i.e.  helping "middle-school-aged children in low-income households that do not currently receive broadband service" have the "opportunity to become digital citizens of the 21st century."  

The NCTA's innovative Adoption Plus initiative is an excellent example of voluntary public-private partnerships that can rapidly and effectively meet real public needs and forward the important goal of universal broadband for all Americans.  

The most effective use of scarce resources is to focus on broadband adoption in the 90+% of America that already has broadband facilities available and on greenfield broadband deployment to the single digit percentage of American households that are currently unserved.

Such a common sense cooperative strategy can produce the most good for the most people fastest.   

Google is now blocking the Internet content of users' choice in two different Google services, meaning that Google has assumed the mantle as the Internet's only net neutrality repeat offender. 

• Google's non-neutral behavior pattern indicates that they are confident that they don't need to respect net neutrality because the FCC will exempt Google from any net neutrality obligations when the FCC's proposed Open Internet regulations are formalized next year.  

So what are the two different Google services that are blocking users access to the Internet content of their choice?

I commend The American Consumer Institute for their excellent new book of scholar essays, “The Consequences of Net Neutrality Regulations on Broadband Investment and Consumer Welfare.”

• It's refreshing and very useful to have a bipartisan collection of of 13 essays authored by 11 senior economists and public policy experts, both Republican and Democrat. 
  • "The book provides insight about consequences Net Neutrality regulations have on two economic concepts that affect broadband consumers: “price and demand” and “cost and supply.”

The net neutrality/open Internet debate needs more of this kind and quality of substantive professional analysis.

Connecting the dots of several recent important developments, Google increasingly is acting autocratically like it has unlimited power and is answerable to no one.

• More and more it appears to operate like a centralized, sovereign, virtual-State exercising control over the world's information, info-commerce and Internet users.

Consider these several Google public actions over just the last month or so:  

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