Germans Charging Google

Wednesday, Mar. 1 2006 | Author: Dave

Kai-Uwe Ricke, the boss of Deutsche Telekom is one of the latest people to point at Google and other such companies to help pay for the expansion and maintenance of the high speed networks that the companies take full advantage of.

DT CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke said: “Customers should not be the only ones to pay for this new world. Web companies that use this infrastructure for their business should also make a contribution.”

Speaking to German news weekly WirtschaftsWoche, Ricke said: “If customers aren’t willing to pay and Google and [others] aren’t willing to pay, there won’t be any high-speed data highways,” IDG reports.

He said companies like Google have been enjoying a free lunch. Ricke is not a lone voice – US telcos AT&T and Verizon have made similar noises.

What do you think? Should Google be charged for the infrastructure of the Internet?

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5 Responses for "Germans Charging Google"

Zero

March 1st, 2006 at 12:38
1

They already *do* pay. Does Google’s content magically appear on the Internet without wires? No. There are likely *massive* pipes to Google’s server farms, all of which they pay a pretty penny for, I’m sure. AT&T, Verizon, and now Deutsche Telekom need to stop talking about double-dipping on Google and start putting their massive salaries towards upgrading their capabilities on their *own*.
David

March 1st, 2006 at 12:55
2

Well written, I think they are just complaining because so many people are using big time bandwidth going to Google’s sites… Google Search, Gmail, etc…
Kevin

March 1st, 2006 at 15:39
3

It really is a load of BS that they keep claiming Google and other companies get a free ride. They spend piles of money on servers and bandwidth as it is. Anyone who runs a web site knows that you pay for your use of the network. AT&T, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, and the like are simply mad that they are not the ISPs for giant internet companies and don’t get to be the guys that charge them. The fact is that they could be bandwidth providers to Google and Others but there are other companies out there that are beating them in that market.

They want to two parties, the web company and consumer, to pay three times for internet access instead of two. It’s simply greedy since they are already making piles of cash from DSL, Cable, and dial up acess from consumers, and really quite unfair.
spas

March 3rd, 2006 at 11:42
4

It’s complete and utter bullshit. You pay to connect to the internet. Period. You pay for your bandwidth that way. How you use it shouldn’t be a factor.
sphereviski

March 11th, 2006 at 17:48
5

Charge Google and other Web sites for bandwidth, even though Verizon is already charging