TechConnect Public Hearing

The internet is strangely quiet about yesterday's Government Audit and Oversight Committee hearing. Not only were Daly, Peskin and Elsbernd arguing over whether or not they should be able to edit their own homepages on SFGov (can SFist petition to make it a crime to put sound, animated GIFs or blinking text on them?), they were also arguing over public oversight of the San Francisco TechConnect process.

Sasha at Left In SF did liveblog the event, which you can watch on SFGTV here [RealPlayer]. We have to commend kicking it off with a good old, single-source, un-verifiable rumor:

Google proposed a free service because it has no interest/ability to implement a billing system. Its explicit plan was/is to follow every user of the network everywhere they go on the Internet. Not only that, but also its plan included provisions to track where people were logging on to the network from in order to deliver locally relevant advertising. E.g. the restaurant on the corner is offering a two for one duck special.

Google is considering dropping out of the process because it has become so unwieldy.

Hey, don't say we didn't warn 'em. Sasha also posted a handy summary of the meeting.There will be another public meeting on Friday at 2pm in room 263 at City Hall hosted by Ross Mirkarimi to discuss forming a local agency to oversee the process and implementation.