I do not know Scott Cleland, but I've seen his blog postings from time to time. I rarely read them, mostly because their titles tend to put me off, but I did read through his latest because of the title ("Google uses 21 times more bandwidth than it pays for -- per first-ever research study"). 

It seemed -- to say the least – improbable, and I wasn't all that impressed. Among his failures, this other Scott seems to think that I do not want the Internet when I buy an Internet connection.

Cleland's Web site is well titled: "The Precursor's Blog: Forward Thinking at the Nexus of Policy, Markets and Change." At least on this site, he seems to be a one-and-a-half-trick pony, however. Most of his postings concern Google or network neutrality, both of which he is quite vehemently against. I read through the posted titles in his archive, and if they are anything to go by, two-thirds of the 250 or so postings that go back to March concern Google, and about one-sixth concern network neutrality.

It took me a while, but I did find some information linked off the Web site that may hint as to why Cleland focuses on the topics he does. If you click on the Disclaimer and Privacy Policy link hidden at the bottom of the page, you are taken to the privacy statement for NETCompetition.org. Clicking on the About Us link on that page brings you to another page that states that their mission is to "create a forum to promote competitive Internet choices for consumers through an open, rigorous, and illuminating discussion and debate of 'net neutrality' legislation/regulation."  The page also has a list of the members of NETCompetition.org, which include all the major telephone and cable companies. Cleland is chairman of the organization.

So, it looks like bashing Google is an occupation rather than an avocation for Cleland.

Regular readers of this column know that I have real problems with some of what Google does -- mostly concerning its insistence that it knows better than I do what is good for me and my privacy. But I doubt that any of my readers think that I'm paid based on how much I criticize any of the targets of my columns.

Now, back to the Cleland column cited above that caught my eye. Google's stealing Internet capacity certainly would be a naughty thing to do, but the referenced research study has some basic problems that make the conclusion rather tenuous.