[governance] 'search neutrality' to go with net neutrality

[Lee W McKnight]

And to be a bit more blunt and to keep it real simple: Google is the largest Internet operator in the US now, and largest source of Internet traffic worldwide.

Traditional 'telcos' like AT & T &  Verizon are still in top 10, but just barely.

But never mind the real world, we'll ignore Google's network and focus lots of effort developing net neutrality regs focused on....someone else. Brilliant.

Lee

Source: see Arbor Networks study Oct. 2009; or readwriteweb article excerpted below.

Google Accounts for 6% of All Internet Traffic
Written by Sarah Perez / October 13, 2009 6:38 AM / 8 Comments
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Five years ago, Internet traffic was, for the most part, managed by tier 1 providers like AT&T, Verizon, Level 3 Communications and Global Crossing, all of which connected to thousands of tier 2 networks and regional providers. Today, that has changed. Now, instead of traffic being distributed among tens of thousands of networks, only 150 networks control some 50% of all online traffic. Among these new Internet superpowers, it's no surprise to find Google listed. In fact, the search giant accounts for the largest source (6%) of all Internet traffic worldwide.

This data comes from a new report put out by Arbor Networks, who has just completed a two-year study of 256 exabytes of Internet traffic data, the largest study of global traffic since the start of the commercial Internet in the mid-1990's.
"Hyper Giants" Rule Today's Internet

The biggest trend to come out of Arbor Networks' report is clearly that of the Internet's consolidation. Today's Internet is "flatter" and "more densely connected" than ever before, reveals Arbor Networks' Chief Research Officer Danny McPherson. Not only is Google the largest traffic source, there are only 30 large companies in addition to Google and including sites like Facebook, Microsoft and YouTube which now account for a disproportionate 30% of all Internet traffic.

According to Craig Labovitz, chief scientist at Arbor Networks, this shift represents the Internet's move into a second phase where it's no longer "all about contacting websites." Rather, "over the past two years larger organizations have been buying up the smaller websites and by July 2009, 30 per cent of the internet was owned by a few large sites." The acquisitions, the result of billions of dollars spent by large companies snapping up smaller ones, has created a new Internet core of "hyper giants," a coin termed by the report.

The other companies making the list of Internet giants include names like Akamai, Limelight, BitGravity, Highwinds, and Gravity - hardly household names, and certainly not big telco providers. Instead, these content delivery networks (CDNs), are the new Internet backbone that help move large amounts of data across the web. 


________________________________________
From: Lee W McKnight [lmcknigh at syr.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 9:53 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; McTim; Thomas Lowenhaupt
Subject: RE: [governance] 'search neutrality' to go with net neutrality

McTim, everyone,

1st a nit: Google's patents are a matter of public record, like everyone's (when issued).

Of course really people including Parminder and Thomas are more curious/concerned about Google's latest 'secret sauce' tweaked algorithms which are trade secrets and McTim is right they have no obligation nor motivation to share secrets. As has also been noted, the whole idea is not to be neutral but to bias search  in one way or another ie, either for financial reasons of Google or for usability  of their customers. Fine. They're a business, we would assume they are trying to make money from their customers.  So forget search neutrality, ain't happening.

Next, and main point: as Ralf pointed out, 'networks' exist at all levels of the stack and of human society (and amongst consenting devices).

So 'net neutrality' is....amongst ISPs and their customers. But wait, not including mobile ISPs. Or them too? But not amongst IAPs (application providers) like Google right. So if you're operating in the cloud providing applications as a service across the Internet...what are you exactly from a neutral net point of view?

Anyway, I don't mean to confuse folks, except to point out that if search neutrality is an oxymoron....well draw your own conclusions re net neutrality. IMHO.

Lee
________________________________________
From: McTim [dogwallah at gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:26 PM
To: Thomas Lowenhaupt
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] 'search neutrality' to go with net neutrality

On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Thomas Lowenhaupt
<toml at communisphere.com> wrote:
>
> McTim,

 <snip>

>
> Here’s my concern and the problem: How are the neighbors to know what's not there?
>
>
>
> If Google hand-wires the results to suite its needs, overriding its secret proprietary sauce, how are the atomized neighbors to know there are others opposed to the development? How are they to know to go to Bing? I suspect many would conclude, “Gee, no one else cares. Maybe I’m wrong?” And Google wins.

Why would Google "hand-wire" their results in a case like that?  They
make money showing ads next to search results.  If such an
intervention became public, the resulting negative publicity would be
not worth whatever gain they would get from NOT listing Google haters
in search results.

Try googling "google haters", there are millions of results.

If you were in a struggle vs Google re: a local real estate deal,
would you really use Google Search to find allies??

Whats missing in all this is this (easily found using Google "how does
pagerank work" I might add):

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

While this may not be the current algorithm, it was the early version
of it.  In other words, with a few seconds effort, one can easily find
out the information asked for in this thread.

>
>
>
> Of course education is the answer. And we've plans to develop curriculum that begins in the 3rd grade and to educates the public at all levels as to civic ills that might arise by putting too much trust in one search engine. But this is likely to take a decade or so to permeate society.


key phrase there is "might arise".  Its brand loyalty, that's all.   I
would hope that we as a group have far bigger fish to fry than this.


>
>
>
> (Before I move to my second point of disagreement let me slip in another example. Imagine we’re a few years down the road and Google “winner$” begin running for public office. How are we to trust its opaque search algorithm during the rough and tumble of an election campaign?

same as during a non election year.  If it is useful to you, use it.
if not, then find something that is useful.

>Then we’ll clearly see the relationship between link and ballot voting!

I cant parse this.

> And even if Google didn’t hand-wire, opponents would surely charge that it did, poisoning the system.)


What you are doing is putting any search engine into a no win system.

I, for one, appreciate what google has done around US election information.

>
>
>
> Second, when you say,
>
>
>
> "We, as IGC (or even CS as a whole) can't expect to seriously ask Google to show us their patented IP, can we?"
>
>
>
> I disagree. Given the importance of search in the development of civic attitudes - like the newspapers and TV of old - I think it’s vital that we address the issue.
>
>
>
> Here’s a path. Initially we make the importance of “search transparency” known to Google and encourage them to provide their secret sauce’s recipe. (I prefer “search transparency” to “search neutrality” as it is a somewhat easier to devise a metric.)
>
>

I think they already know that people want to know how they know what they know.


>
> Google has capitalized their search lead and integrated it into a plethora of other services and should be able to keep their lead for the foreseeable future, and might be prescient to see the poisoning possibility and be agreeable to the need to move toward transparency.  Perhaps they might initially agree to a trusted outsider initially, a Moody’s-like entity to judge all search engines. And if Google doesn’t see the light, perhaps Bing might take a lead in offering transparent search.


perhaps, but i wouldn't bet on it.
>
>
>
> And if the search industry doesn’t see the necessity – no one steps in - it’s incumbent on civil society to educate the public and decision makers about the impact of search opacity and encourage the development of a transparent search engine.
>

That has been tried, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia_Search

You are welcome to do it again if you feel the need.

--
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
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