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Clark Howard's Tips

April 3, 2008

A few weeks ago, Clark slammed Comcast for violating net neutrality and lying about it. After that debacle, the monopoly actually paid people to stack an FCC hearing room and lied about it again!

Well, that was a real turning point because it fanned the flames of public outrage. Now the company has reached a deal with BitTorrent that ensures they won't degrade your Internet experience anymore.

Many people would like to have a website, but it's either too expensive or they're techno-idiots like Clark professes to be. Well, now Google has launched a new website -- Sites.Google.com -- that allows you to easily build a website for free.

Google's new tools can be used for non-commercial purposes or as a shared internal resource in a small business. They provide all the servers for free and store all your information offsite. Some people may get creeped out by that, but increasingly this is how things will be done.

This business model really takes us back to how networks used to be built, where you had a computer hooked up to a mainframe. Google is playing the role of the mainframe. The neat thing is that economy of scale becomes possible so they can provide you with a webpage for almost nothing.

There's always the chance that Google may just be yanking Microsoft's chain with Sites.Google.com. Microsoft launched a similar initiative, but it isn't free. So the competition between the 2 leaves you as the ultimate beneficiary.

Consumer advice courtesy of