04/15/2008, 4:45pm, EDT
Tuesday, April 15thPoliticians: Google manipulated 700MHz auction
Google deliberately manipulated the outcome of the FCC's recent 700MHz auction, three US Representatives have alleged. Republicans Cliff Stearns and John Shimkus, along with Democrat Eliot Engel, said at a hearing today that Google unfairly managed to obtain an open wireless network without having to win it, by promising to bid at least $4.6 billion on the 22MHz block if the winner was forced to allow open (third-party) access. Evidence of this is claimed to be bolstered by a recent Google blog post, in which officials admit that open access was a key priority during bidding.
"I suspect that if Google had been interested in more than just maneuvering within the system," said Stearns during the hearing, "it could have prevailed in the C block and become a new [wireless] entrant. I suppose we cannot blame them for trying to get free access to the spectrum; what is more concerning is, that even though we knew what they were doing, we let them maneuver this way anyway."
The problem, according to Stearns and others, is that the open-access rule may have deterred a number of companies from bidding, giving Google what it wanted while limiting auction income to $19.1 billion instead of estimates as high as $30 billion. InfoWorld notes that Google does have the support of people such as FCC chairman Kevin Martin (pictured), who contends that open access will ultimately benefit many people and businesses.
"Our goal, in adopting the openness conditions, was not to prohibit someone else from winning, but to actually [require] whoever won that spectrum to have an open platform," said Martin today, in response to a question by Shimkus.
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What would the gummint have done with that extra (hypothetical) $11 billion anyway? They would have just pissed it away on a month of war in Iraq.
So what would Stearns have wanted to do? Ban Google from the bidding for being too clever? I think these three congressmen were paid off by Verizon and AT+T who ended up paying more than they might otherwise have bid thanks to Google.
In bids for power this big, there is no such thing as egalitarianism (not a bad thing). Get over it.
In any case, these congressmen are clearly carrying water for at least Verizon if not AT+T too. If Google had not been involved, those two would have paid LESS, not more. The auction would have raised less (perhaps far less) than $10 billion, not the $30 billion they are alleging.
Whatever, like I am sure you care about the military, and btw what does this have to do with the article? Just using it as an opportunity to bash a president you don't like. How original and transparent
Your spite is showing through...
I do care about the military, by the way. I have friends serving and if you had the balls to say to my face that I don't, you'd find your dick in the dirt real quick.
You know who doesn't care about the military? People who send them off to an unnecessary war without a legitimate rationale, without a competent strategy, without adequate armor, people whose sons and daughters and political supporters make a point of NOT serving (*coughCollegeRepublicanscough*)
As for bashing a president I don't like, it goes well beyond that. All right-thinking people can't stand Bush/Cheney and if someone can't figure out what's wrong with them, then their head is hopelessly up their arse.
If Nuremburg principles were applied to the USA - and why shouldn't they be? - Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld would all be facing life imprisonment. How fortunate for them that capital punishment is no longer used for war criminals.
But who cares about us...