Users as Toast: The Blocking of Google TV [telecom]

Update: How They're Blocking Google TV (with Screenshots)

Lauren Weinstein November 06, 2010

Greetings. In Users as Toast: The Blocking of Google TV, I strongly criticized the blocking of the new Google TV (GTV) products by a range of network TV Internet services. In particular, I suggested that such selective blocking of specific hardware devices for other than legitimate technical reasons was not only inappropriate, but also should likely be considered illegal.

The inanity of this situation is further enhanced by the fact that users can display fullscreen images from these online networks directly from PCs equipped with HDMI ports (or via inexpensive DVI to HDMI adapters). So obviously the real issue "in play" isn't the simple blocking of large screen video displays per se.

A number of persons have asked me for more detailed information about how Google TV blocking is actually occurring. Let's look at a couple of preliminary examples today (many thanks to Google for providing me with a Google TV unit for these explorations and experiments). Links below point to associated screenshots and photos.

For all of these cases, a conventional Windows 7 PC and a Google TV box (Logitech Revue) -- both running a Chrome browser -- were connected to the same Ethernet switch, and accessed the Internet via the same NAT'd address during the test periods.

In practice, blocking of GTV is occurring at two different levels.

...

The Stream of Fear: The Real Reason They're Blocking Google TV

Lauren Weinstein November 12, 2010

Greetings. In "How They're Blocking Google TV" and "Users as Toast: The Blocking of Google TV", I discussed some of the technical details of online networks' blocking of Google TV (GTV), and some of the reasons why such blocking is unacceptable.

But I haven't really talked about *why* the networks (Hulu, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, SyFy, and others) are engaging in this discriminatory process in the first place.

Google for its part continues a diplomatic "content owners control who views their content" mantra. As I've previously discussed, this is an understandable tack. After all, if such disputes can be settled in mutually agreeable ways, the hassle factor is greatly reduced.

However, even when such agreements are possible, they may also serve to validate unfair and/or discriminatory practices that are normally unacceptable in other contexts of our lives -- and that can spell trouble for the Internet and its users in the long run.

...

.......... I had no idea what "Google TV" was so I searched out details of it and the various bits of hardware required to what is basically a system that integrates TV and on-line content with a common UI (well, that's what I gleaned after a cursory but nowhere near thorough investigation).

The thing that hit me was that they hadn't (yet?) tried to integrate telecoms into it. To me it seems obvious to have a system where incoming VoIP - or landline - calls pop up a box in the corner of the display.

They seem to be supporting 'net video calls, surely it would make sense to integrate voice into the same terminal device as well?

C'mon guys, I've seen this sort of thing on many Sci-Fi fantasy shows, make it happen!!!

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

Monty Solomon posted the following article by Lauren Weinstein:

| Users as Toast: The Blocking of Google TV | By Lauren Weinstein October 22, 2010 | | Greetings. The day started badly. All he wanted was a | piece of toast. Yet instead of creating a crispy slice | of goodness, his General Electric toaster ejected the | still soft slice, and flashed a bizarre admonition on its | display (odd, he didn't even remember it having a | display) -- informing him that due to an ongoing dispute | with Van de Kamp's bakeries, he was blocked from toasting | that particular brand of bread until further notice. How | droll. | | At least he could head out and pick up something to eat | elsewhere. But he was low on gas -- better buy some | first. | | More trouble. The pump refused to operate. What's this | flashing on its screen? A list of acceptable car brands | that have made deals with ARCO. His old car wasn't on | the OK list. So -- no gas. Amazing. What's the world | coming to? | | Back home, at least he can watch some TV. Now what? | Instead of shows, messages are popping up hot and heavy. | CBS says they will only allow viewers using SONY | televisions to tune in. FOX demands Toshiba or | Samsung.... | |

Those analogies are nonsense. Weinstein misses three points:

PAYMENT MECHANISM. Producers of any product expect to be paid for their efforts. He (whoever "he" is) has already bought the bread, so the producer has been paid. And he's trying to buy gasoline, so the producer will get paid at the point of retail sale. But how would CBS and FOX be paid?

Perhaps Google TV has (or will have) a payment mechanism. If so, Weinstein doesn't mention it. Absent such a mechanism, I doubt that any video program producer/distributor will agree to let Google TV access their products.

ADVERTISING MEDIA. Bread and gasoline are not advertising media (unless you count the bread wrapper and signage at gas stations). CBS and FOX are ad media, and they expect that their retail distributors will support that business model.

Perhaps Google TV has (or will have) a mechanism for such support. But absent such a mechanism, I doubt that any program producer/distributor will agree to let Google TV access their products.

BROADCAST STATION MONOPOLY STATUS. As I noted in my post dated Oct 26,

2010, 9:33 pm, every commercial television broadcast licensee has an exclusive market monopoly within its DMA. Every MVPD (CATV, satellite TV, telco TV, whatever) is required, by federal law, to protect that monopoly. FOX recently provided a vivid illustration of this monopoly power in its retransmission-consent negotiations with Cablevision and Dish Network.

Perhaps Google TV has (or will have) a mechanism for protecting this monopoly. In order to implement such a mechanism, Google would have to obtain a separate video signal from every network station in the country, and map every Google TV viewer to the correct station. I suppose this could be done by sorting on county name, zip code, or landline NPA-NXX, but even for Google, this would be a monumental task.

In any case, absent such a mechanism, I doubt any program producer/distributor will agree to let Google TV access their products.

Weinstein doesn't seem to understand any of this. In fact, it appears that he doesn't even understand the difference between broadcast television program and non-broadcast television programming.

Neal McLain

No, I think Weinstein believes these distinctions are irrelevant relics of a bygone age. Obviously, the video programming aggregators disagree, hence the dispute.

Why anyone would think it reasonable for Hulu to allow me to watch a Fox comedy on my laptop but not on my Google TV (if I had one, which I don't) is not clear to me, but monopolies do all sorts of unreasonable things to maximize the amount of wealth they extract from their customers, and Fox certainly has a monopoly on this particular entertainment product. The usual rules against tying only apply to market-created monopolies, not government-created ones like copyright.

-GAWollman

Well, they *are* relics of a bygone age. Weinstein may be aware of them, but if he is, he doesn't mention them.

But it's not copyright law that created broadcast monopolies; it's communications law -- specifically, the grotesquely-misnamed "Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992." This act created the whole structure, including defined geographic markets (Nielsen DMA), the must-carry rules, and the retransmission-consent rules.

Your elected representatives in Congress call it "consumer protection."

Neal McLain

that would be a lot funnier if it were written during the bush days about bush