[IP] Re: Google enables caching in users' browsers but not by enterprises or ISPs

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: June 15, 2009 7:26:47 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Google enables caching in users' browsers but not by  
enterprises or ISPs


Dave,

Re the author of the outburst aimed at Google included below ... as
Ronald Reagan famously said, "There you go again ... "

Let's start with the fact that the blog posting being referred to by
the author below is *not* from an official Google blog of any kind --
a fact that is clearly noted on the blog itself.  The statement about
the caching achievement, etc. was that of an independent observer, not
Google.  Oops!

Next, while "complicated" caching topologies can of course be
developed, it is not a simple matter to just let commodity cache
software or standard cache boxes start sharing YouTube Videos among
different users of an ISP, without disrupting important aspects of
YouTube on which users depend.

An obvious example is maintaining correct statistics on user playback
operations, which are important to amateur and professional video
creators alike (Google provides much of this data to video submitters
via their free "Insight" service).

Another factor is access control.  Not all YouTube videos are public.
The fact that one user of an ISP has permission to play a particular
YouTube video doesn't mean that all other subscribers of that ISP
have that same permission.

Properly designed "end-to-end" caching systems could presumably be
developed and deployed to deal with such issues.  But ISPs that
antagonistically promote the purposeful disruption of Google/YouTube
services in the manner proposed by the author below, would seem to be
suggesting that they are uninterested in cooperative approaches to
such technical issues in any case.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com


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