No, it's not their network. It's our common network. If anybody imposes own rules on their part of the network, we are losing interoperability. Internet loses any sense.
He apparently thinks that he (or maybe more accurately "we") should dictate how private companies treat traffic. Despite it's huge footprint, Google does not have a monopoly on email, if they are treating users unfairly, they can switch -- but I use Gmail because their spam filtering is so good. And I'm ok with dropping a few legit emails if it means not seeing spam in my mailbox.
From my old law courses (IANAL but someone decided programmers should have a basic knowledge of law):
* An illegal monopoly should not be absolute. Having >20% of the market has been enough te be considered a monopoliy for antitrust. The main question is if your actions dominate the market.
* But having a monopoly is not enough. You can have 100% of the market and be legal. Abusing the monopoly is the problem. Abuse is typically crushing smaller competitors, or using your monopoly in 1 market to push yourself to another market.
* Is google abusing its potential email monopoly? My non-lawyer guess is no. Being non-responsive and arrogant is not illegal.
* But the google browser and search engine might very well be other stories. Here google seems dominant enough to influence web standards and change other corporations behaviour to raise in their search index.
* I don't think US or EU governement are willing to step in, though.
> "Their network; their rules".
No, it's not their network. It's our common network. If anybody imposes own rules on their part of the network, we are losing interoperability. Internet loses any sense.
He apparently thinks that he (or maybe more accurately "we") should dictate how private companies treat traffic. Despite it's huge footprint, Google does not have a monopoly on email, if they are treating users unfairly, they can switch -- but I use Gmail because their spam filtering is so good. And I'm ok with dropping a few legit emails if it means not seeing spam in my mailbox.