Google bans Kozoru for mashing up with it

Hopefully, this will be the last Google-related post for some time. But when I read Dave's post on Google's banning Kozoru, I couldn't help it. I consider myself a fairly religious, spiritual person, and thought I knew what evil was. But I guess my definition and Google's are very different. This bang-up on Kozoru's mash-up isn't evil, but it certainly calls Google into question as the proverbial tech Good Guy.

It also begs the question of whether it's wise to build a business on someone else's technology, as Dave calls out. I'm talking about product-based businesses. Frankly, like Google and the others who ride on top of others' networks. BusinessWeek has a short but interesting (and very Lessig-esque) article on the possibility that the broadband networks might start charging those that freeride on them.

Just ask AT&T's CEO Edward Whitacre Jr., as BusinessWeek did in its November 7 issue:

"What [Google, Vonage, and others] would like to do is to use my pipes free. But I ain't going to let them do that."

(Btw, I loved the WSJ's piece on Google's SVP of Sales (Omid Kordestani) behind the AOL deal. He sounds like a great person, and actually gets respect at a company that tends to disdain anyone that isn't a hard-core engineer.)