Google Receives Billions in subsidies! I never knew of this shiz!

[Dripping Rain]

This was a Shocking surprise for me. no pun
For the first time in my life I decided to search and see if Google actually receives govt subsidies. Loe and Behold I can only find one single drupal blog talking about this(me wonders if they censored the rest if any) run by a dude called Scott Cleland
Im now reading through the pdf file

heres some snippets from the blog entry

The Google FCC partnership

Pending FCC policy proposals in the National Broadband Plan and the Open Internet regulation proceeding would vastly expand the implicit multi-billion dollar subisidies Google already enjoys, as by far the largest user of Internet bandwidth and the smallest contributor to the Internet's cost relative to its use.

Interestingly, the FCC's largely Google-driven policy proposals effectively would:

* Promote Google's gold-plated, 1 Gigabit broadband vision for the National Broadband Plan at a time of trillion dollar Federal budget deficits;
* Recommend a substantial expansion of public subisidies for broadband that would commercially benefit Google most without requiring Google to contribute its fair share to universal broadband service; and
* Regulate the Internet for the first time in a way that would result in heavily subsidizing Google's out-of-control bandwidth usage.


How Google is benefiting so far

II. How much is Google currently subsidized?

Broadband subsidies: Google uses an estimated 21 times more Internet bandwidth than it pays for, implying an implicit subsidy of $6.9b annually to Google per Precursor's formal estimates. Google has yet to offer its own estimates of its Internet usage and costs.

* The most recent Arbor Networks study of Internet traffic subsequently confirmed Google as the world's largest user of Internet bandwidth.

Shortchanging Taxpayer: The Google lobbied-for open access restrictions on the FCC's 700 Mhz wireless auction cost the American taxpayer ~$7b in lower auction proceeds, according to Precursor estimates at the time.

Heres the blog
http://precursorblog.com/content/how-much-should-google-be-subsidized

heres the pdf of the study made by his company
http://www.netcompetition.org/study_of_google_internet_usage_costs2.pdf

Im currently reading through this to analyze it and update my op. please feel free to post your findings here.

ps Sorry Alex Jones for making fun of you at first, but I now share your concern for being censored by a leech corporation thats dependent on our tax money to survive

edit: this has certainly burst my bubble and should burst the bubble of anyone on this forum who says "youtube/google is private property just get over it" Google/Youtube being having private property rights is fast becoming an "Urban Legend"

snippets from the pdf
snippet 1

Google is the driving force behind www.InternetForEveryone.org which is pushing “to
adopt a national plan to bring open, high-speed Internet connections into every home, at
a price all of us can afford.” Internet connections could be more affordable for everyone,
if Google simply paid its fair share of the Internet’s cost.
Google is a leading proponent of no limits on Internet usage.
o It is ironic that Google, the largest user of Internet capacity pays the least
relatively to fund the Internet’s cost.
o It is even more ironic that the company poised to profit more than any other from
more broadband deployment, expects the American taxpayer to pick up its
skyrocketing bandwidth tab.
o Simply, Google abuses a shared resource yet denies the responsibility of shared
costs.
The goal for universal broadband access is modeled in part on the successful Universal
Service system for telecommunications. Universal Service has long been funded based
on usage, the exact opposite of the current situation where Google, and other large
Silicon Valley high-users of bandwidth, believe there should be a one-tier Internet where
consumers, not providers, should pay for the delivery of applications and content on the
Internet.


My understanding: Google is promoting socialized internet where everyone in America gets access to free Unlimited internet "payed for by the tax payer tit" so that everyone will be happy and google can have a bigger market audience for their ad revenue generating system

snippet 2

Any analysis of public highway funding will show that businesses/trucks, which put the
most cost burden on the highways, pay substantially more than consumers/cars – the
exact opposite of Google’s recommended broadband model, where consumers shoulder
most all of Google’s distribution costs.
Google is inconsistent in supporting government ownership/regulation of the Internet
like the U.S. highway system, but not adopt the economic model and fairness of the
highway system -- where the heaviest users that cause a bulk of the costs – shoulder a
fair portion of those costs.
My understanding: Google is strongly behind government regulation but they dont want to follow the rules or pay their share so they leave it up to the taxpayer to foot the bill. although publicly they say otherwise.
Where does net neutrality fit into all of this? Is this why Ron Paul's against "net neutrality"
i gtg sleep but tomorrow ill have to dig more into this.

[WorldonaString]

bump for discussion. I'll be taking a look at all this, good find!

[Kotin]

Holy shit dude.. Good find, I did not know about this.. Though I can't say it surprises me..


Google creeps me out and angers me the more I learn about them.

[phx420]

in other words, hold my hand

[Dripping Rain]

bump for discussion. I'll be taking a look at all this, good find!

thanks dude


Holy shit dude.. Good find, I did not know about this.. Though I can't say it surprises me..


Google creeps me out and angers me the more I learn about them.

always creeped me out. but I always considered them to be a great example of a self sufficient exemplar business. now it appears heres a lot of hidden crap. havent even gotten to the State subsidies part yet. I also need to do some more research on net neutrality because Im starting to get the vibe that google monster is financially benefiting from this shiz. theyre already pushing for socialized internet for heavens sakes

[AGRP]

So Google is what we thought it was?

[Liberty Rebellion]

I got a bad feeling when Google. had their name on a rocket with a CIA satellite on-board.

Edit - at least that is what I think was going on. Trying to find a link to the story

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Reading the pdf, linked to in the article, the first couple of paragraphs explain this 21 to 1 number they are touting.

Essentially, google sends a bot to a website, we'll use ronpaulforums.com as the crawled site. So, here comes google bot, and it copies everything (if you are lucky), into googles databases, from there it does it's thing to determine search engine results. Everyone understands that.

The logic used in the pdf is that since google is costing ronpaulforums.com bandwidth by copying it's pages to analyze, is that google is getting subsidized by ronpaulforums.com because ronpaulforums.com pays for the bandwidth the bot consumes. Really it's more messed up than that in that they appear to be attributing the fact that the host is paying for that bandwidth, not the casual browser.

Now, that is a ridiculous position, true google may cause a lot of bandwidth usage in it's crawling, however, that crawling is necessary to determine search results, and additionally every website can stop all such crawling via robots.txt file. You'd be a fool, not to accept the minimal cost incurred by crawling if you are a public website though, but you can stop it, and incur no bandwidth costs. Google crawling your site is VOLUNTARY.

So, their analysis is hack at best, which is probably why no other sites have picked it up.

Here's the quote, of their logic.

"What drives this conspicuous bandwidth consumption is Google’s search bots regularly copy every page on the Internet, some as frequently as every few seconds, and Google’s YouTube streams almost half of all video streamed on the Internet."

Anyone that runs a public website and desires traffic from google's search engine loves google bot visiting, because obviously that means the possiblity of more traffic.

The consumer eating the costs, is also absurd, it's not the consumer eating the cost, it's the website host eating that cost. You the consumer, pay your ISP to view the results of the crawling, that the host paid for.

[Kludge]

Reading the pdf, linked to in the article, the first couple of paragraphs explain this 21 to 1 number they are touting.

Essentially, google sends a bot to a website, we'll use ronpaulforums.com as the crawled site. So, here comes google bot, and it copies everything (if you are lucky), into googles databases, from there it does it's thing to determine search engine results. Everyone understands that.

The logic used in the pdf is that since google is costing ronpaulforums.com bandwidth by copying it's pages to analyze, is that google is getting subsidized by ronpaulforums.com because ronpaulforums.com pays for the bandwidth the bot consumes. Really it's more messed up than that in that they appear to be attributing the fact that the host is paying for that bandwidth, not the casual browser.

Now, that is a ridiculous position, true google may cause a lot of bandwidth usage in it's crawling, however, that crawling is necessary to determine search results, and additionally every website can stop all such crawling via robots.txt file. You'd be a fool, not to accept the minimal cost incurred by crawling if you are a public website though, but you can stop it, and incur no bandwidth costs. Google crawling your site is VOLUNTARY.

So, there analysis is hack at best, which is probably why no other sites have picked it up.

Here's the quote, of there logic.

"What drives this conspicuous bandwidth consumption is Google’s search bots regularly copy every page on the Internet, some as frequently as every few seconds, and Google’s YouTube streams almost half of all video streamed on the Internet."

Anyone that runs a public website and desires traffic from google's search engine loves google bot visiting, because obviously that means the possiblity of more traffic.

The consumer eating the costs, is also absurd, it's not the consumer eating the cost, it's the website host eating that cost. You the consumer, pay your ISP to view the results of the crawling, that the host paid for.

Thanks for the summary.

[sevin]

http://paranoidnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Google-as-a-Giant-Robot-of-Evil-e1286181721197.jpg

[SilentBull]

Help me understand this. The gov actually gives google money to help cover their bandwidth costs? Is this correct???

[SilentBull]

Reading the pdf, linked to in the article, the first couple of paragraphs explain this 21 to 1 number they are touting.

Essentially, google sends a bot to a website, we'll use ronpaulforums.com as the crawled site. So, here comes google bot, and it copies everything (if you are lucky), into googles databases, from there it does it's thing to determine search engine results. Everyone understands that.

The logic used in the pdf is that since google is costing ronpaulforums.com bandwidth by copying it's pages to analyze, is that google is getting subsidized by ronpaulforums.com because ronpaulforums.com pays for the bandwidth the bot consumes. Really it's more messed up than that in that they appear to be attributing the fact that the host is paying for that bandwidth, not the casual browser.

Now, that is a ridiculous position, true google may cause a lot of bandwidth usage in it's crawling, however, that crawling is necessary to determine search results, and additionally every website can stop all such crawling via robots.txt file. You'd be a fool, not to accept the minimal cost incurred by crawling if you are a public website though, but you can stop it, and incur no bandwidth costs. Google crawling your site is VOLUNTARY.

So, their analysis is hack at best, which is probably why no other sites have picked it up.

Here's the quote, of their logic.

"What drives this conspicuous bandwidth consumption is Google’s search bots regularly copy every page on the Internet, some as frequently as every few seconds, and Google’s YouTube streams almost half of all video streamed on the Internet."

Anyone that runs a public website and desires traffic from google's search engine loves google bot visiting, because obviously that means the possiblity of more traffic.

The consumer eating the costs, is also absurd, it's not the consumer eating the cost, it's the website host eating that cost. You the consumer, pay your ISP to view the results of the crawling, that the host paid for.

This is exactly what I was confused about. If this is what they are saying, Google is not being subsidized by the tax payer. Each website owner is paying for their bandwidth usage, which includes Google bots. I see nothing wrong with this.

[jclay2]

Well, I do know that google pays a tax bill of 2% or using an offshore loopholes known as the "Dutch Sandwich" and the "Double Irish". They don't get to repatriate the cash, but they do get to let it grow virtually tax free and will only pay a real amount of taxes at the time of repatriation.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/how-googles-refusal-pay-us-taxes-means-us-taxpayers-fund-its-innovation-resulting-benefit-10

[ChaosControl]

Google needs to be destroyed.

[romacox]

Yes, this has been going on for many years, and most large corporations (including Walmart) get these subsidies....It is redistribution of wealth falsely called "Free Trade". Ron Paul refers to it as Corporatism, and Stossil calls it Corporate welfare.

[cswake]

google logs every ip and search, ever. For 7 billion a year im sure the govt has access to it. Cant wait to see what they have on me.
http://scroogle.org/ (http://scroogle.org/)

[Jordan]

Implicit subsidies. :rolleyes:

I could make that claim that since I live within 2 miles of Pizza Hut, I subsidize those who live ten miles away, since I pay the same delivery charge even though it costs less to deliver pizza to my door than it does to another person further away.

To say that is a "subsidy" which, in my opinion, implies the role of government, is a bit over the top.

[SilentBull]

Implicit subsidies. :rolleyes:

I could make that claim that since I live within 2 miles of Pizza Hut, I subsidize those who live ten miles away, since I pay the same delivery charge even though it costs less to deliver pizza to my door than it does to another person further away.

To say that is a "subsidy" which, in my opinion, implies the role of government, is a bit over the top.

Exactly. There is no story here.

[therepublic]

Yes, this has been going on for many years, and most large corporations (including Walmart) get these subsidies....It is redistribution of wealth falsely called "Free Trade". Ron Paul refers to it as Corporatism, and Stossil calls it Corporate welfare.

Oh Yes there is a story:
YouTube - Ron Paul: Corporatism Reason for Bailouts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg6_QVcssgM)

[Austin]

Reading the pdf, linked to in the article, the first couple of paragraphs explain this 21 to 1 number they are touting.

Essentially, google sends a bot to a website, we'll use ronpaulforums.com as the crawled site. So, here comes google bot, and it copies everything (if you are lucky), into googles databases, from there it does it's thing to determine search engine results. Everyone understands that.

The logic used in the pdf is that since google is costing ronpaulforums.com bandwidth by copying it's pages to analyze, is that google is getting subsidized by ronpaulforums.com because ronpaulforums.com pays for the bandwidth the bot consumes. Really it's more messed up than that in that they appear to be attributing the fact that the host is paying for that bandwidth, not the casual browser.

Now, that is a ridiculous position, true google may cause a lot of bandwidth usage in it's crawling, however, that crawling is necessary to determine search results, and additionally every website can stop all such crawling via robots.txt file. You'd be a fool, not to accept the minimal cost incurred by crawling if you are a public website though, but you can stop it, and incur no bandwidth costs. Google crawling your site is VOLUNTARY.

So, their analysis is hack at best, which is probably why no other sites have picked it up.

Here's the quote, of their logic.

"What drives this conspicuous bandwidth consumption is Google’s search bots regularly copy every page on the Internet, some as frequently as every few seconds, and Google’s YouTube streams almost half of all video streamed on the Internet."

Anyone that runs a public website and desires traffic from google's search engine loves google bot visiting, because obviously that means the possiblity of more traffic.

The consumer eating the costs, is also absurd, it's not the consumer eating the cost, it's the website host eating that cost. You the consumer, pay your ISP to view the results of the crawling, that the host paid for.

+rep


Implicit subsidies. :rolleyes:

I could make that claim that since I live within 2 miles of Pizza Hut, I subsidize those who live ten miles away, since I pay the same delivery charge even though it costs less to deliver pizza to my door than it does to another person further away.

To say that is a "subsidy" which, in my opinion, implies the role of government, is a bit over the top.

+rep

[therepublic]

Companies making money through true free enterprise is receiving a profit because of their services. ..rewarded for production.

However when the government takes taxpayer money, and gives it to some companies in the form of subsidizes or bailouts, that is not free enterprise...that is redistribution of wealth. Ron Paul calls it corporatism, Strossel calls it corporate welfare

YouTube - Ron Paul Responds to Michael Moore: It's Corporatism, Not Capitalism - 10/29/2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl8vP9L6Imo&feature=player_embedded)

[Jordan]

Companies making money through true free enterprise is receiving a profit because of their services. ..rewarded for production.

However when the government takes taxpayer money, and gives it to some companies in the form of subsidizes or bailouts, that is not free enterprise...that is redistribution of wealth. Ron Paul calls it corporatism, Strossel calls it corporate welfare

YouTube - Ron Paul Responds to Michael Moore: It's Corporatism, Not Capitalism - 10/29/2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl8vP9L6Imo&feature=player_embedded)

Excluding taxes levied on cable and telecom packages, please explain how tax dollars exchanged hands in the OP.

[therepublic]

Excluding taxes levied on cable and telecom packages, please explain how tax dollars exchanged hands in the OP.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8230

YouTube - Farm Subsidies -- Stossel in the Classroom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8G1HIlRppo)
farm subsidies go to the large corporate farmer making it hard for the small farmer to compete.

[Heimdallr]

Don't be evil, eh?

[BrendenR]

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8230

YouTube - Farm Subsidies -- Stossel in the Classroom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8G1HIlRppo)
farm subsidies go to the large corporate farmer making it hard for the small farmer to compete.

OP = Original Post.

The original post is about Google. He's asking you to demonstrate how Google received subsidies from the government, not for examples of other industries.

[therepublic]

I am not familiar with Google subsidies per-say/ My point was to say that large corporations have been receiving these things for many years, and it would not surprise me if Google were among them as this link indicates.
Google's Billions In Internet Subsidies... (http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/02/googles_billion.php)

A large sugar farmer in the everglades Of Florida received billions of taxpayer money while they hired illegal aliens (forcing them to live in third world conditions), and polluting the everglades. Florida taxpayers (not the company paid to clean it up)

Walmart routinely gets to keep the sales taxes they collect, while the mom and pop stores are not given the same which makes it hard for them to compete.

A still mill in Florida received millions to come to the State, and every few years threaten to leave if they are not given more money . So far the City pays up.

Microsoft receives millions in subsidies said to be for research.

Corporations are paid subsidies to move out of the Country.

General Motors used bailout money to build a state of the art plant in Brazil, and was telling the Brazilian president their plans to do so before they even received the bailout money.

The middle class is disappearing because they are paying money to the poor, to the wealthy, and to other countries.

It is endless, and it is not Capitalism

[MRK]

So, if bandwidth as a whole is subsidized, and Google operates on bandwidth, then the argument is that Google is benefiting from a subsidy. That is, Google is being subsidized.

To say otherwise would be similar to saying that when General Motors lobbies for massive road infrastructure improvements, they're not doing it the interest of subsidizing their bottom line.

[low preference guy]

google sucks

[therepublic]

It is my understanding (perhaps someone would know more than I on the following) that this corporate welfare all started with Milton Friedman who called it the "trickle down theory". Ronald Reagan, who was wisely against welfare to the poor who chose not to work, liked Milton Friedman economics. The idea was that if our tax money was handed over to the wealthy, they would create jobs, thus trickling down.

If that is what happened, it failed because welfare to those who do not earn it (up or down) is a disaster...probably even worse than to the poor, because it is much harder to cut of the flow to the powerful.

[low preference guy]

It is my understanding (perhaps someone would know more than I on the following) that this corporate welfare all started with Milton Friedman who called it the "trickle down theory".

Do you have one source that says that Friedman proposed or had a good opinion of "trickle down theory"? I bet you wouldn't find anything if you tried.

Corporate welfare started a long time ago. The Federal Reserve was created with the purpose of providing welfare to banks.

Friedman was awful (proposed the withholding tax, was cool with the existence of the fed, believed the depression lasted that long because the Fed didn't print enough money), but I don't think you can accuse him of starting corporate welfare.

[therepublic]

Do you have one source that says that Friedman proposed or had a good opinion of "trickle down theory"? I bet you wouldn't find anything if you tried.

Corporate welfare started a long time ago. The Federal Reserve was created with the purpose of providing welfare to banks.

Friedman was awful (proposed the withholding tax, was cool with the existence of the fed, believed the depression lasted that long because the Fed didn't print enough money), but I don't think you can accuse him of starting corporate welfare.

Thanks. any information you can provide on this would be appreciated. I have read many conflicting articles concerning Milton Friedman and his "Trickle Down Theory", so I am not sure, but interested in knowing more.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_reaganomics18.471f4bc.html

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2006/11/milton_friedman_dies_theories.html

[low preference guy]

Thanks. any information you can provide on this would be appreciated. I have read many conflicting articles concerning Milton Friedman and his "Trickle Down Theory", so I am not sure, but interested in knowing more.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_reaganomics18.471f4bc.html

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2006/11/milton_friedman_dies_theories.html

Thomas Sowell writes:


What I said that set off the crazies was that there is no such thing as "trickle-down" economics. Supposedly those who believe in trickle-down economics want to give benefits to the rich, on the assumption that these benefits will trickle down to the poor.

As someone who spent the first decade of his career researching, teaching and writing about the history of economic thought, I can say that no economist of the past two centuries had any such theory.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2005/03/31/stupidity_trickling_down

[therepublic]

I did read that article...But also saw :the One Percent"

Did you see the documentary "The One Percent" by the grand son of Johnson & Johnson. He exposed the subsidies to the sugar plantation in the everglades, and interviewed Milton Friedman in that documentary. The implication was that Milton Friedman's Trickle Down Theory was the cause of such .

Not that I am accepting either as fact...just curious.

[therepublic]

Here is an interview of Jamie Johnson in which he refers to the Trickle Down Theory by Milton Friedman, but does also say Milton was for less regulation and cutting taxes. From this I would conclude that Friedman believed in the Trickle Down Theory, but not (perhaps) corporate welfare.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/20/wealth-jamie-johnson-biz-cx_lr_0219johnson1.html

So Jamie Johnson exposes some here to for unknown facts, but I think his (Jamie Johnson's) solutions were even more wrong than Friedman's)

[Jordan]

I am not familiar with Google subsidies per-say/ My point was to say that large corporations have been receiving these things for many years, and it would not surprise me if Google were among them as this link indicates.
Google's Billions In Internet Subsidies... (http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/02/googles_billion.php)

FYI, that story cites the information posted in the first post of this thread.

[BlackTerrel]

Well, I do know that google pays a tax bill of 2% or using an offshore loopholes known as the "Dutch Sandwich" and the "Double Irish"

As well as the "Dirty Sanchez" and the "Jelly Donut".