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.”

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 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.

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.

Details we’ve all been waiting for… the Google Nexus One phone.  We posted a Nexus One Android 2.1 walkthrough video earlier this month and today Engadget has managed to score a full spec sheet for the phone, as well as some details about its release date.

According to Engadget’s source, the phone will initially be available by “invitation only.”  It looks like Google will be deciding who gets invites (hey, Google, call me), but the specifications also indicate that T-Mobile will be able to sell the phone directly to the customers in the future.

The Breakdown

- 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, included 4GB microSD card, expandable to 32GB

- 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and mechanical autofocus

- 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED screen — in other words, as big as the Droid and brighter

- Worldwide GSM/EDGE, but 3G only on T-Mobile in the US (supports 2100, 1700 and 900 frequencies, meaning Europe should be covered)

- 1GHz Qualcomm chip — if accurate, that would make the Nexus One one of the fastest — if not the fastest — smartphones on the market.

- Wi-Fi A/B//G/N

- Bluetooth 2.1

- GPS

- Accelerometer

The specs look solid, the phone matches or beats every competing Android phone on the market (aside from having no physical keyboard) and also compares quite favorably to the iPhone (faster processor, nicer screen, wireless-N).

The only caveat for potential U.S. buyers is that, barring some sort of firmware upgrade (assuming the 1900 band is just disabled), this phone will only work in 3G in T-Mobile’s network.  If you live in a large city, that might not be a problem, but T-Mobile does have the smallest 3G footprint of any of the major U.S. wireless carriers.

For international users, this is really enticing, because the phone should be compatible with all UMTS bands in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia/New Zealand.

Now all we need is a solid release date and a price.  My friends are ready to buy this sight-unseen.  What about you?  android, Google, nexus oneWhat do you think of the Nexus One?

Could the Google phone be the death of the newly released Android?? The HTC-built device called the Nexus One was handed out to Google employees last week in the “mobile lab”. The rumor is that these phones would be sold unlocked directly to consumers.

The million dollar question is: How would Google bring an unlocked phone to market? There are really only three ways to sell phones.

1. License spectrum from a carrier and become a mobile virtual network operator or MVNO — a business model that time has proven to be a failure.

2. Of course, is to partner with carriers and offer phones at discounted prices through carrier subsidies, which is more or less the case with every successful device on the US market today.

3. Sell unlocked devices at full retail price that can be used by consumers on the network of the their choice. This is allegedly the model Google will be using to sell the Nexus One.

Stay tuned… we’ll see when and if the phone comes out to the market anytime soon.

We’ve been matching up popular web services, applications and mobile apps against each other in heated one-on-one battles here in our weekly Faceoff Series. Last week Microsoft Office bested Google Docs in a head to head race for the title of office suite champion.

This week we turned our attention to a rather timely battle being waged on the mobile front, between Apple’s still wildly-selling iPhone platform and Google’s slower to boil Android mobile operating system. Apparently the latter has been gaining some ground, resulting in our first unexpected upset victory in the Faceoff series.

… Google Android is the winning platform by a more than 2:1 margin. Out of 5045 total votes, Android walked away with 3323 of them or 66%, while the iPhone platform only netted 1494 or 30%. The tie vote included 228 or 5% who just couldn’t choose between them. Many people cited the openness of the platform and third-party development process as well as Android’s versatility, being able to be put to use not just on phones but also netbooks, tablet devices, eReaders and more.

Still, given the popularity of the iPhone we were a little surprised by these results. Are you? Let us know in the comments.

Web Faceoff: Overall Results

Week 2:
- Tumblr vs. Posterous
- WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)

Week 3:
- Pandora vs. Last.fm
- WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)

Week 4:
- Twitter vs. Facebook
- WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)

Week 5:
- WordPress vs. Typepad
- WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)

Week 6:
- Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard
- WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)

Week 7:
- TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop
- WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)

Week 8:
- Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs
- WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

Week 9:
- Apple iPhone vs. Google Android
- WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)