On April 22, 2010, the world celebrated the 40th edition of Earth Day.  According to earthday.org, it is the largest secular event in the world with over 1 billion people participating in over 190 countries.  This number was surprising to me because I barely remember reading anything about the event that allegedly included 1/7 of the population.  Other than the Google homepage spelling out Google in very “earthy” letters, Earth Day would have passed me by unnoticed.  By contrast, events like the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (75,000 people), the Kentucky Derby (140,000 people), and even the NFL draft (held in Radio City Music Hall) had around the clock coverage, but were much smaller in scale.  Even a BP oil spill that happened off the Gulf Coast on April 20th was receiving around the clock coverage during Earth Day.  This made me believe that Earth Day would be more effective if people focused more on what they were trying to accomplish rather than how many people participated.  Thus, the question was raised: how many companies are serious about its environmental goals and how many are focused on convincing the public that they are serious?

I can not speak for every company nor can I provide a complete analysis on the positive and negative effects of any company’s environmental policy.  However, I can point out a few examples of environmental hypocrisy that will remind everyone that the only difference you can be sure of is the one you make yourself.

Let us begin with BP.  Oil companies already have a bad reputation regarding the environment and we have heard everyone blasting BP for spilling oil into the Gulf.  What people are not talking about is that BP has been recognized as one of the most environmentally conscience companies in the world.  Granted, operating an oil company generates a certain amount of pollution, but so do dozens of other industries.  So where is the hypocrisy?  It lies in the federal government.  Just listen to how they scold BP and its offshore drilling efforts.  Even though, on April 1st, President Obama lifted a decades-long moratorium on offshore drilling.  This effectively allows new drilling to take place in Alaska, the Gulf, and the entire Atlantic coast.  New drilling has been banned for the last 20 years.

During the government’s tongue lashing of BP, you will also not hear them mention that BP was one of three finalists for the US Department of Interior’s Pollution Prevention Award.  The winner was chosen before April 20th, but the ceremony has been postponed.  If BP was not the original winner, then why postpone the ceremony?  You also will not hear them mention BP as a finalist for the U.S. Government’s SAFETY Award For Excellence (SAFE) for High Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Activity.  In other words, BP is a finalist for having the safest off-shore drilling operation.   The winner of this award was also chosen before April 20th, and the ceremony has been postponed.  I wonder who won.  It appears to me that BP is serious about the environment and the government is more concerned with making you think it cares.

Another great example is FedEx.  They announced on March 29th that they are launching the first electric delivery vehicle.  Awesome FedEx, we appreciate your efforts.  Here is the press release about the vehicle, which is not up and running yet.  Shocking.

The only problem with announcing that you are the first at something is that people might not believe you.  As it turns out, UPS has been operating 4 electric delivery trucks in New York since 2004, and dozens more in Europe.  The difference is that FedEx felt the need to run ads, commercials, and hold a press conference to tell the world about the one electric vehicle that they have and do not use.  UPS did the same thing without running around telling the world how wonderful they are.  They wanted to make a difference and did.  FedEx wants you to think that it is considering making a difference, but has not yet. 

The point is, before you allow a company’s environmental policies effect where you spend your money, remember that they will overstate the positives, understate the negatives, and say whatever you want to hear to get your business, fatten their wallets, and make you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.  Like the old saying goes, “The loudest person in the room has the least to say.”  If a company was really making a difference it would not have to consistently tell you that it was.  You would notice, and if you really care about doing your part for the environment, remember, the only part that matters is the part you do yourself.  Don’t let a company fool you into thinking you are helping if you purchase its products.  The only difference it will truly make is on their balance sheet.

I am easily impressed.  Here I was, watching the NCAA tournament online, thinking, “This is brilliant, I can watch live basketball without having cable.”  All because of my magical broadband connection provided by Cox Communications.  Of course, the game looked like it was being played by pixilated Lego-men, but I didn’t care.  All I cared about was being able to watch my beloved Kentucky Wildcats without Greg Gumble and the CBS crew switching back and forth between games as if a squirrely 3 year-old was holding the remote.

However, when I recently received my bill for my broadband services I decided not to just blindly pay the balance.  I wanted to understand the brilliance for which I was paying.  Cox lists its fastest broadband service for $58.95 on its website.  That is about $9.75 more than the national average, according to the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development). This did not strike me as odd because I live in San Diego, where everything is three times more expensive. As I dug deeper, what I found frustrated me to no end, and after you read this you just might be as frustrated as I am!

First, Americans pay an average of $49.25 for broadband service.  This ranks 20th out of the 30 countries that are members of the OECD.  Greece has the cheapest broadband with an average monthly service costing the consumer $27.72, while Turkey is the most expensive with an average of $135.36.  Fifteen countries have averages of less than $40.00.  Relative to the developed world, broadband is expensive in America.

Don’t mistake cost for quality because the US ranks 23rd in advertised broadband speed. The average advertised download speed in the States is around 14618kbs/s.  That number is very misleading because the FCC estimates that households are lucky to get half of the advertised speed.  Half!  That means we are downloading at around 7000kbs/s.  That number ranks 29th, just ahead of Mexico (2514kbs/s) and just behind the Irish (6008kbs/s).  There are select places in this country that have broadband speeds of 51200kbs/s (50mbs/s), similar to those found in most countries.  However, that costs the consumer about $145 a month in the US.  That would make it the most expensive internet in the world!  This is when I started getting frustrated.

Is this even broadband anymore?  FCC regulations dictate that in order for something to be considered broadband it must have a download speed of 768kbs/s.  So as long as you are getting that, a company and call it broadband, and charge you accordingly.  Dial up internet speeds max out at 56kbs/s, but since the service can be bought for under $5.00 a month it is cheaper per kb of speed in a lot of places.

Americans have little choice in the matter.  Most cities have only two broadband providers, the phone company or the cable company, which creates a duopoly, and some homes are not even equipped with the infrastructure to offer both.  Yes, that is correct; America doesn’t have the infrastructure to offer competitive broadband prices.  Companies in other countries were willing to share the cost of building the required infrastructure while competing for customers.  But since the phone companies and cable companies seem to lack any sort of quality customer service I can see why they don’t want to compete.

Being deceived is frustrating, but what really bothers me is the fact that we are missing out on a number of opportunities simply because our internet is too slow.  There is a whole host of applications that we cannot use.  Remote surgery, video instant messaging, and streaming HDTV are just a few, and I am sure there are many more applications in education, energy management, health care, and public safety that I am not thinking about.

Google wants to know what can be achieved with faster internet. That’s why, in one lucky town, they are going to build an experimental fiber network that supports speeds up to 102400kbs/s, (100mbs/s) just to see what kind of applications can be developed when bandwidth is no longer a constraint.  There was no shortage of volunteers, either.  1100 towns applied, and over 200,000 individuals wrote letters to Google explaining why their town should be chosen.

When I read the 2020 estimate, which is in the most recent stimulus bill, I was beyond frustrated and decided to test my own internet connection.  My download speed clocked in at a pathetic 4985 kbs/s, and I realized America might have the worst internet in the world.  You can check yours here.

I apologize for sounding defeated, but our internet is slow and expensive and there is not a thing we can do about it.  The government estimates that by around 2020, 100 million homes will have broadband speeds of 100mbs/s.  That’s great; we have to wait a decade to catch up to the rest of the world, and how fast will their internet be by then?  My bitterness began to swell, and it got worse when my pixilated Wildcats lost a hard fought game to the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Elite Eight.  The video of that game could only be appreciated by the likes of Cubist painters Pablo Picasso or Georges Braque.  Ignorance is bliss, and I understand that now.  I should have just blindly paid the balance.

We’ve all been sold on the notion of globalization for the last decade, and for good reason.  Here at GAP we just recently launched our B.R.I.C. services to satisfy the global demand for information.  China is the world’s most populous country and fastest growing of all the G-20 economies.  Thus, operating in China is essential to any company that wants to operate globally, especially those based in America.  This is what I have been led to believe.  Yet, Google Inc., arguably America’s most respected company, is threatening to end its Chinese operations.  The search engine giant has apparently had enough of China’s extensive censorship and is claiming that the Chinese government hacked into Gmail accounts belonging to a number of human rights activist.

While Google is a great company and much admired here at GAP, the first question I had to ask myself was whether or not this was a tactical statement.  Could Google really leave China without a knee-jerk reaction by its stock-holders?  The answer appears to be, so far, yes.  China, even though it has the most internet users in the world, only accounts for 1% of Google’s revenue.  The day Google made the announcement, 1/12/09, its shares traded for only 2% lower at the end of the trading day.  Two days later, on 1/14/09 the company’s stock closed 5 points higher than what it opened for on 1/13/09.  Either stockholders do not think Google will bolt, or they do not think it will matter.  Only time will tell.

One reason Google wants to leave might be because it is losing the battle for market share in China.  China’s own state run search engine Baidu currently owns a 62% share of the market compared to Google’s 30%.  Controlling a third of the largest market in the world seems relatively successful, but not so much when you compare it to the 68% share it controls in the U.S.  I do not think Google considers itself second best at anything, and undoubtedly they believe that the censorship is the cause.  It only seems obvious that the Chinese people would prefer to use a Chinese search engine, particularly, one that is state run such as Baidu.  It is this fact that I believe to be the most influential to Google.

When Google launched its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, in 2006, they had no problem with China’s censorship policies and were willing to adhere to their view of propaganda discipline.  At the request of the Communist Party of China, Google even agreed to censor information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests along with information from countless human rights groups and dissenters.  Google agreed to all of China’s terms while operating under their motto of “Don’t Be Evil.”  For Google.cn, however, the motto seemed to be “Search No Evil.”

Free speech and human rights activist are heralding the news as a victory for their respective causes, and there is no doubt that Google is taking all the credit.  In fact, we should all applaud any champion of free speech, but Google.cn has been the exact opposite of that for several years now.  If we read between the lines, it becomes clear that Google is like many of the companies around the world.  They keep quiet and turn a blind eye to human rights violations as long as there is money to be made.  There has not been a lot of money in China for Google, and now they can no longer stand the tyranny of the Chinese government.  Coincidence?  I can’t say for certain.

Whatever Google’s motivation is for leaving China, one thing is for sure, it takes powerful organizations to tear down obstacles like the ones the Chinese people face.  I believe it is possible that Google can actually do more for the people of China by bolting than if they continued to conform.  Watching Google strive to become acceptable to the Chinese government, especially during the 2008 Olympics, was like watching an older sibling impose their will on their younger counter-part.  This is not meant to insult the company, but it is simply how Beijing works.  They do not take kindly to any highly publicized, theatrical throwing down of the gauntlet.  In fact, just like in Tiananmen Square, they tend to squash their foes before you even hear about them.  Facebook and Twitter are banned in China, and does anyone remember a public showdown between them and Beijing?  It is far more likely that Beijing will ban the company before Google pulls out.

American’s love Google and the Chinese people made it obvious that they support Google by going to the company’s Chinese headquarters last week and leaving flowers, lit candles, and signs of encouragement.  The impact of Google on this generation is incalculable, but do you believe Google is as heroic as the news is leading you to believe?  Or do you think they are simply avoiding the losses and hassles they would incur by staying?  They did not stand up courageously in the beginning when they thought there was money to be made.  Now, however, Google is willing to stand up for itself, and hopefully, the Chinese people will also have the courage to do the same.  As the old saying goes, “Better late than never,” but I can not help wondering if its courage on Google’s part or is it cowardice.

Regardless of their motivations or tardiness, one thing is certain, it feels good the have Google fighting for the good guys.  I have always considered Google to be one of the corporate good guys, especially in an environment consisting of Madoffs, Enrons, bailouts, and bonuses.  We will have to wait to see how everything plays out in the coming weeks or months, but rest assured readers, GAP is in China, GAP is staying in China, and GAP will continue to provide the most accurate, uncensored market intelligence from China.