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Google outage takes down Gmail, YouTube and highlights issues in the Internet of Things

Billions of people around the world rely on Google’s online services – and that’s never more apparent than when they go down.

Jack Gramenz
3 min read
December 16, 2020 - 8:43AM
What is the Internet of Things?

Google’s online services have been restored after a widespread outage, but despite only lasting several hours the outage was enough to expose a worrying side effect that is likely to get worse in the future.

While it was bad enough that the workspace portfolio of productivity apps including Docs, Sheets and Drive (that many businesses rely on) went down, so too did YouTube, meaning people who were prevented from working also had no way to procrastinate.

As well as what you’d typically expect to go down during a Google outage, there were also reports of other outages with “scary” implications.

Similar to what happened when Amazon’s troubled US-East-1 servers went down last month, people who had embraced the exciting future of the connected home and the Internet of Things (IoT) reported being unable to use their everyday appliances that rely on Google’s servers.

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While many were mildly inconvenienced, some have said the outage was a reminder of just how “scary” it is that we rely on a handful of massive tech companies to keep the world spinning.

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The cloud computing market – where external servers process requests over the internet and deliver them back to “terminals” like smartphones or IoT devices – is largely dominated by Amazon (through Amazon Web Services), Microsoft (through Azure) and Google Cloud.

This consolidation “poses questions about whether the internet should be accessible to everyone without competition”, according to the director of the Centre for Future Enterprise at the Queensland University of Technology, Professor Michael Rosemann.

“Internet infrastructure has become a bit like water and energy supply,” Prof Rosemann told news.com.au. “We talk about big outages when a power failure occurs, it’s much more sophisticated with the internet.”

He said society at large needs to consider the public good, whether the internet is a public asset that needs to be provided and whether the current playing field of public and private partnerships was sufficient, especially as the IoT revolution picks up speed.

“Think about the world in 5, 10, 20 years: When cars, buildings all other kinds of things rely on this. I think this is not just a technical or micro-economic question, it’s a macro-economic and political discussion.

“The provider will always be a mix of public and private, but to what extent are public regulations sufficient to ensure infrastructure is available? The dependence on that infrastructure will only grow in the years to come.”

As social media has shown, the dangers of waiting too long to regulate new technology can make it close to impossible when the time for action does come.

A Twitter account that pokes fun at the Internet of Things of course had a field day with the outage. Its name has been slightly censored to remove profanity.
A Twitter account that pokes fun at the Internet of Things of course had a field day with the outage. Its name has been slightly censored to remove profanity.

Prof Rosemann said it made sense people were contemplating how much they rely on services from companies like Google when they’re forced to deal with an outage, and whether that’s a good thing.

“Any time we have an outage like this people will contemplate whether it’s a problem with regulation or the way the market is set up. Unlike other sectors, this domain is primarily handled by very large organisations that are truly global players.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just something we need to consider.”

A report from the Australian Council of Learned Academies on behalf of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) last month highlighted the “significant benefit” the country could receive by embracing the IoT, including using it to “create an on-demand manufacturing sector, monitor carbon emissions in our supply chains, track energy usage in our homes, and enhance telehealth”.

The Department of Home Affairs estimates up to 64 billion devices could be connected to the internet by 2030.

In September, the Department released a Code of Practice which it called “a first step towards lifting the security of Internet of Things devices in Australia”.

It’s not yet known if anyone is following the code.

“Compliance with the voluntary Code of Practice is encouraged, but optional. There is no specific sign-up process,” a Department spokesperson told news.com.au.

“The Department of Home Affairs is currently engaging with industry to understand how the Code of Practice has been used in practice.”

They added additional steps “may be considered if voluntary advice and guidance, like the Code of Practice, is not enough to drive change”.

Originally published as Google outage takes down Gmail, YouTube and highlights issues in the Internet of Things

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Original URL: https://www.thechronicle.com.au/technology/online/google-outage-takes-down-gmail-youtube-and-highlights-issues-in-the-internet-of-things/news-story/2c19a8048d82b6f374b621ea3eb420ca