Welcome to the Schminternet!

Although Google CEO Eric Schmidt (pictured here) took pains in a press conference yesterday with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg about net neutrality policy to distance the search giant from the idea that it could be part of any new “private” Internet, that did not stop a lot of pundits from crying foul.

And also making up one of the best monikers ever for the possibility of a new toll-heavy information superhighway.

That would be the Schminternet!

The term was a word coined by media blogger Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine, accidentally mangling Schmidt’s name perfectly when making a Yiddish joke in a post to Twitter: “The Schminternet=not the internet. Comes with new fees.”

It was only the beginning of the pointed tweets by Jarvis:

“If you take your iPhone from your wi-fi outside it moves from the internet to the schminternet?” and “So if you launch, say, a new video university, is that internet or schminternet?”

Indeed, the Google (GOOG) and Verizon (VZ) convoluted explanation of the plan left it open to such discomfort, because of the nagging notion that the public Internet would eventually get the shaft for a private one that had different rules.

Also left out of the Google/Verizon chit-chit: Wireless broadband, which is where all the action is happening today.

Would that be on the Schminternet? Or even multiple Schiminternets?

Noted Jarvis in a blog post today:

So, ol, grandpa internet may chug along giving us YouTube videos of flaming cats, but you want to get that while you’re out of your house? Well, that’s the nonnet. I can hear the customer “service” rep explaining this to us:

“Oh, no, sir. That’s not offered on the internet. That’s on the schminternet.”

You want something new? Anything created after 2010?

“Schminternet, sir.”

Jarvis and others are right to be questioning the Google-Verizon policy, since it seems to suggest a balkanization of digital distribution, which seems counter to Google’s stated interest in an open Internet system.

But, just in case, Jarvis–who penned the book. “What Would Google Do?”–has bought the Schminternet.net domain.

Anonymous

Jarvis didn’t coin Schminternet. Schminternet.com has been a registered domain since 04-11-2003.
Anonymous

The only way you can have neutrality is if the government (the people) pass laws that enforce neutrality and which apply equally to all companies. A big part of this press conference was a sort of throwing up of hands, “how are we going to get all the companies to agree on ground rules!?” as if there was no government, which from the corporate perspective, there is not.

Imagine if we had no road laws and companies were competing by running other companies’ trucks off the road. Instead of that, the government says “nobody can run somebody else off the road” and then companies have to compete by improving their own logistics, not by sabotaging someone else’s.

What I saw in this press conference also was that Google and Verizon don’t think they can compete on a level playing field going forward. Verizon built a ton of wired infrastructure but now all anybody wants is wireless. And Verizon’s wireless infrastructure is antique, totally closed, nonstandard, very slow, incompatible with most of the world’s phones and other wireless devices. Google is so wrapped up in Nerd Dogma that they can’t build products that regular people want, like Facebook and iPhone. If they were to create Google Search today, it would look like the dashboard of a 747 instead of being one search box dead center. Then they would kill it a few months later and complain that users didn’t get it but they celebrate it’s failure. So both Google and Verizon are looking for anti-competitive ways to stay the biggest.

Instead of buying Android 5 years ago and partnering with Verizon, it would have been cool if Google had bought Sprint (with cash) and built a nationwide Wi-Fi network we could run our iPhones on at $30 per month for data (including VoIP) and made Verizon compete. Instead, Google has become just another telco.
http://twitter.com/rurikbradbury Rurik Bradbury

Nonsense. Competition is the answer, not regulation. Wireless is a very competitive market, and now that Apple/Android turned the telcos into dumb pipes, they are finally competing on data speed. 4G services are coming online now, with 10 Mbits+ speeds by 2011. Neutrality is not needed if consumers have real choice.

Also, a $30 nationwide plan is not a viable business. Sprint is already trying the ‘low price provider’ route by undercutting Verizon and ATT by 30% — with its $70 ‘Unlimited’ smartphone plan. It is still doing badly. Now imagine how badly it would be doing if it knocked another $40 off the price.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Scholte/100001188664648 Mark Scholte

maybe…before creating a new private internet,
they should consider setting up a general white- or blacklist
this would save the world economy alot on useless costs which can finally be spent on human development
just get a browser to offer basic-packs which only offers access to certain sites programmed by default or added by the admin of the account.

or maybe, they should try to understand this thing called “internet” and change it the way it is…why waste money on a so called private copy of a concept which is already operational, which will lower data-transfer by atleast 50% for both the public and private network.

my god are all these people on crack or just trying desperately to make bank whenever a chance (no matter how dumb) presents it self?

Welcome to the Schminternet!

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