The Journal reported today that Google is rethinking the issue, known in wonkish circles as "network neutrality," and approaching telecom companies about paying them for access to their networks. Richard Whitt, a Google lawyer who works on telecom issues, called the article "confused," and conveniently forgot uttering a statement he was quoted as saying. The Journal is standing by its story.

The only confusion here is whether Google thinks reporters need its permission to uncover important stories.

The arrangement is clever enough; it involves placing Google servers deep with the telecom companies' networks, reducing the cost to the telcos for carrying Google content over their wires. In theory, anyone can do it — which is why Google spokesman Richard Whitt is claiming it doesn't violate their stance on network neutrality, a cause célèbre of Silicon Valley which has failed to resonate farther than 50 miles from the campus of Stanford University.

Some say Google's proposal, dubbed OpenEdge, is clearly malicious, a contravention of its corporate slogan, "Don't be evil." But I'd argue that Google's use of network neutrality has always been evil. Google has not advanced network neutrality because it believes in some namby-pamby principle like the openness of the Internet; it is a cudgel with which it has beat the telecom companies over the head, threatening government regulation if they did not cut Google a deal on favorable terms.

Googlers are intelligent sorts, well-trained in the arts of Big-Brother doublethink. (I almost expect them to change the motto to "Don't be ungood.") Whitt argues that Google's caching efforts aren't evil, because anyone can pursue the same arrangements. Anyone who, like Google, has $14 billion in the bank, that is. Google isn't evil. It's just fabulously rich. And Googlers believe in a level playing field — for anyone who has as much cash to throw around as they do.

(Logo by Gevil.org)

What's important is that if the vote passes, it will set a precedent that strengthens the FCC's claim on jurisdiction over regulating the Internet by giving some teeth to the agency's Internet Policy Statement from 2005. Republican chairman Kevin Martin can count on majority, thanks to the support of the two Democrats on the commission, and the motion is expected to pass.

But not unanimously, as Republican commissioner Robert McDowell doesn't approve. He penned a dissenting opinion piece in the Washington Post arguing for the preservation of the laissez faire status quo for ISPs: "If we choose regulation over collaboration, we will be setting a precedent by thrusting politicians and bureaucrats into engineering decisions." (Photo by AP/Stephan Savoia)

His strong opinions in the network neutrality debate may have something do with contributions from Internet service providers like Verizon and AT&T, which are respectively third and fifth on the list of largest contributors to his current re-election campaign, both ahead of oil industry services company Veco. He also counts News Corp. and Disney as top donors, and has championed broadcast flag provisions that would have required electronics manufacturers to bar users from recording digital audio or video flagged by rightsholders.

The investigation by the Department of Justice has been going on for four years, having raided the senator's remodeled home last year. But it's clear that corporations have known that Senator Stevens's vote has been for sale for some time now. The bad news alone might spell doom for the senator's re-election campaign, which would count as good news for open Internet advocates — the Democratic challenger, Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, is a strong supporter of network neutrality legislation.

Google would like people to think it's getting in the phone business. The mere prospect of Google as a competitor causes panic among entrenched phone and broadband providers like AT&T and Verizon, and accomplishes two important goals: One, it helps persuade those companies to bend to Google's public-policy whims, like "network neutrality." And two, it lets Google's sharky telecom purchasers negotiate better terms when they do buy fiber-optic capacity. (Serving up those YouTube videos does chew up a lot of bandwidth, after all.) By owning some of its own fiber, Google knows how much it really costs to run a network — and how to lowball its suppliers.