INTERNET WAR TO BE DECLARED

It looks like Google isn’t the only one gearing up for a social network battle.

Rumors surfaced in June that the search giant was developing a Facebook competitor called Google Me, and the company’s social networking ambitions became even more certain this week with its acquisition of social app maker Slide. TechCrunch has called Google’s efforts a war on Facebook, and said Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra is the company’s general.

Now we’ve heard from a source close to Facebook’s plans that the social network is working hard to fend off Google. Specifically, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has declared that the company is on “lockdown” for the next 60 days, with the office open on weekends as the company tries to revamp Photos, Groups, and Events in advance of the Google launch. We hear Zuckerberg even has a neon sign saying “Lockdown” on his office door.

The phrase is a callback to Facebook’s early days, as described in David Kirkpatrick’s book The Facebook Effect. During a lockdown, if someone wanted to leave the office Zuckerberg would reportedly pound the table and say: “‘No! We’re in lockdown! No one leaves the table until we’re done with this thing.”


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IT GETS WORSE

Google and Verizon went public today with their "policy framework" -- better known as the pact to end the Internet as we know it.

News of this deal broke this week, sparking a public outcry that's seen hundreds of thousands of Internet users calling on Google to live up to its "Don't Be Evil" pledge.

But cut through the platitudes the two companies (Googizon, anyone?) offered on today's press call, and you'll find this deal is even worse than advertised.

The proposal is one massive loophole that sets the stage for the corporate takeover of the Internet.

Real Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers can't discriminate between different kinds of online content and applications. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies. It's what makes sure the next Google, out there in a garage somewhere, has just as good a chance as any giant corporate behemoth to find its audience and thrive online.

What Google and Verizon are proposing is fake Net Neutrality. You can read their framework for yourself here or go here to see Google twisting itself in knots about this suddenly "thorny issue." But here are the basics of what the two companies are proposing:

1. Under their proposal, there would be no Net Neutrality on wireless networks -- meaning anything goes, from blocking websites and applications to pay-for-priority treatment.

2. Their proposed standard for "non-discrimination" on wired networks is so weak that actions like Comcast's widely denounced blocking of BitTorrent would be allowed.

3. The deal would let ISPs like Verizon -- instead of Internet users like you -- decide which applications deserve the best quality of service. That's not the way the Internet has ever worked, and it threatens to close the door on tomorrow's innovative applications. (If RealPlayer had been favored a few years ago, would we ever have gotten YouTube?)

4. The deal would allow ISPs to effectively split the Internet into "two pipes" -- one of which would be reserved for "managed services," a pay-for-pay platform for content and applications. This is the proverbial toll road on the information superhighway, a fast lane reserved for the select few, while the rest of us are stuck on the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

5. The pact proposes to turn the Federal Communications Commission a toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing consumer complaints but unable to make rules of its own. Instead, it would leave it up to unaccountable (and almost surely industry-controlled) third parties to decide what the rules should be.