Concern That Google and Other Tech Giants are Quietly Buying Up Undersea Cables

Big tech's ownership of the internet backbone will have far-reaching, yet familiar, implications, says Tyler Cooper, a broadband policy watcher and editor at BroadbandNow. In an op-ed published in VentureBeat he writes: "Consumers will soon need to decide exactly how much faith they want to place in these companies to build out the internet of tomorrow. We need to decide carefully, too; these are the same companies that are gaining access to a seemingly ever-increasing share of our private lives. ... Google will own 10,433 miles of submarine cables internationally when the Curie cable is completed later this year. The total shoots up to 63,605 miles when you include cables it owns in consortium with Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon."