1. Google denied it’s in talks with Verizon to create a tiered structure that would put the
search engine’s content over other websites.
Google And Verizon Not Against Net
Neutrality
The rumor first broke by the New York Times (via: Gizmodo) which reported Google and
Verizon were inking a deal that would challenge net neutrality ideals. According to the
NY Time’s source, content delivered by Google would be delivered faster and favored
over its competitors thanks to a paid deal with Verizon. Such an agreement goes
against the fragile ideals of net neutrality which treats all data downloaded or uploaded
to the Internet as equal bits. The FCC has come out as a proponent of net neutrality
which would prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from creating a tiered data plan
allowing you to only visit websites that paid up or charge you additional fees to receive
faster service from the same website. The potential of such an agreement goes against
both company’s ideals as Google has been a vocal critic of those who throttle data and
Verizon has been a staunch defender of net neutrality. However, Google has come out
to vehemently deny any rumors it’s in talks with Verizon over such an agreement via its
public policy Twitter account:
“@NYTimes is wrong. We’ve not had any convos with VZN about paying for carriage of
our traffic. We remain committed to an open internet.”
Google reiterated its stance in the following statement:
“The New York Times article regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is
mistaken. It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC
filing, our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability,
and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation.
To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect.”

2. What Is Net Neutrality?
Net neutrality is the concept that data should be delivered equally and not favored over
other sources. However, some people are against those ideals, the most prominent
being Comcast who has come under major criticism for throttling data downloaded by
their customers to manage the stability of its network. While the obvious solution
would’ve been to channel money in to improving the quality of service, sadly its easier
to ensure a quality experience by restricting data heavy users. But there are more
apocalyptic, doomsday like scenarios associated with critics opposing net neutrality.
Google Promoting YouTube Over Others
Internet Service Providers could charge per gigabyte downloaded on an astronomical
scale, restrict you to visiting websites that have paid them and slowing down data
delivered by any service that directly competes with them (i.e. YouTube loading at a
snail’s pace to entice you towards an ISP’s video on demand offerings). Of course
Google would be paying a hefty sum to direct a massive amount of data over smaller
video sharing websites it would provoke a backlash towards SEO. Since an ISP would
pick and choose which sites it would feature determined on payments, websites that
rely on SEO would be rendered useless if they don’t have the cash to pay out to an ISP
for a featured spot in its package. No longer would Google comb the Internet for content
thats relevant and interesting but content deemed profitable would be chosen on cash
alone.
It’s also a grey area the FCC has fought to protect but due to recent legal action, the
agency has less power than it did before. In April, a Federal court of appeals announced
its decision to grant a petition of review for Comcast who was challenged by the FCC for
data throttling. The FCC could not enforce the concept of net neutrality on Comcast
according to the court. The case was a huge victory for its opponents and an even

3. bigger one for the Internet service provider which was slowing down the bandwidth of
users who were using p2p file-sharing programs.
Google’s View On What Net Neutrality
Means
However, Google has been discussing net neutrality with Verizon but not on the
apocalyptic scale many are thinking. Late Wednesday, Eric Schmidt spoke at the
Techonomy conference in Tahoe, California giving some insight in to the inner workings
of Google, discussed Google Wave, the Verizon deal and more importantly, net
neutrality.
“We have been talking to Verizon for a long time about trying to get an agreement on
the definition of what net neutrality is. We’re trying to find solutions that bridge between
the hardcore net neutrality view and the telecom view. I want to be clear what we mean
by net neutrality. What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don’t
discriminate against one person’s video in favor of another. But it’s OK to discriminate
across different types, so you could prioritize voice over video, and there is general
agreement with Verizon and Google on that issue. The issues of wireless vs. wireline
get very messy because of the issue of Type I vs Type II regulation and that is an FCC
issue not a Google issue.”
Gigaom has the complete 40 minute presentation available.
Any talks between Verizon and Google in any form will carry some unease as the the
search engine’s mobile operating system, Android is available on phones sold by
Verizon. Compromising net neutrality would directly benefit Google in delivering
YouTube content much faster and would give the company an unfair advantage over
other mobile operating systems sold on phones by Verizon. However, this is only a
doomsday-like scenario that won’t come to fruition.

4. Google and Verizon’s agreement to define net neutrality will have a big impact: it could
provide a standard to define what is discriminatory and what isn’t in regards to delivery
content. It is very important to note that Google had not discussed a content delivery
system that would favor YouTube or other video hosting websites such as Vimeo and
Hulu. However, it could also give some of the cable companies and net neutrality
detractors more power to enable data throttling all in the name of maintaining network
quality if a clear set of standards are created. It will be interesting to see how Google,
Verizon and other major backers come together to help define this fragile concept and
hopefully empower it with some legal strength from the FCC. By defining what net
neutrality exactly is, courts and the government will have a clearer view on an already
grey area.
What we’d like to hear, how would you react to your internet service provider enacting a
tiered structure for which websites you can visit much like your cable companies offers
different packages of channels.