Microsoft was EVIL.

Now Facebook and Apple are EVIL.

But not Google. Never Google. Their informal corporate motto is Don’t Be Evil.

The leading audiocast is This Week in Google. Their Aug. 11th edition was titled Carrier-Humping Net Neutrality Surrender Monkeys (based on Ryan Singel’s post on Wired)

Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do, feels betrayed. He fears Google is considering selling out users in order to profit along with phone carriers like Verizon.

Why should you care?

Your online life could soon be much, much worse and more expensive than today. Especially on mobile devices like smart phones.

Check Jeff’s post – Buzz Machine – Internet, schminternet

What can we do about this?

Well the Federal Communications Commission in the States could grow a pair, to start. They’re supposed to be protecting consumers. Unfortunately they seem to be gutless when it comes to confronting the lobbyists of Verizon and that ilk. Especially in an election year.

The world tends to follow whatever happens in the States.

Jeff feels that if the FCC is powerless, the users of the internet will have to rally round something like his proposed

Bill of Rights for Cyberspace:

I. We have a right to connect.
II. We have the right to speak.
III. We have the right to assemble.
IV. We have the right to act.
V. We have the right to control our data.
VI. We have the right to control our identity.
VII. What is public is a public good.
VIII. All bits are created equal.
IX. The internet shall be operated openly.

Google used to advocate for an open web. No more, it seems.

It may be time they fire Eric Schmidt, to start. And reaffirm the original mission of the company, the one that made people trust them in the first place.

related – Business Insider – One amusing difference between the new Evil Empire (Google) and the old one (Microsoft)

UPDATE: … As Google backpedals, the EFF weighed in with this much cited post – A Review of Verizon and Google’s Net Neutrality Proposal – Legislative Analysis by Cindy Cohn