Google yesterday announced its plans to build a fiber optic network.  Telecom and tech blogs have been near euphoria and proclaimed Google to be “your next ISP.“  Calmer heads have noted the massive capital this would require and the low margins on broadband networks as reasons they likely won’t do anything grander.

If all of this sounds familiar, that may be because Google promised to roll out free WiFi in San Francisco in 2005 (with the same wholesale and net neutrality conditions), and that hasn’t exactly panned out.  Google also got the FCC to pile onerous conditions on top of the 700 Mhz spectrum auction – by promising to participate – then threw up a weak bid and walked away after forcing the winners to live by the pro-Google rules.

Needless to say, the company has a history of promising networks then failing to deliver.  It’s not surprising that some industry players have described the latest effort as yet another Google PR stunt.

But one person who has fallen for it, and apparently fallen hard, is Ben Scott at Free Press.  He could barely contain his fawning over the search Giant in a press release.

The FCC should use these examples to set forward-looking goals for the future of broadband throughout the United States. In the coming years, all Americans should have access to a world-class broadband network. The world’s most advanced broadband nations already have networks capable of these speeds — we are years behind in the race to create a national infrastructure that can support the next generation of e-commerce, e-government, health and education technologies, and much more.The FCC should adopt these high standards and aspirational goals when it delivers the National Broadband Plan to Congress in March. The National Broadband Plan should chart a course to guide the United States in the near term to universal deployment and adoption of high-capacity Internet infrastructure, and in the long term toward 1 gigabit broadband and beyond.

But here’s the problem for Free Press.  They have a record of opposing “Big Media”. Heck, they have a whole website devoted to it. If you believe, as many do, that the “Think Big With A Gig” project may foretell the newest entrant in the telecom space, shouldn’t Free Press be terrified?

After all, Google accounts for 6% (Update: 10%) of all Internet traffic and has almost 86% of the search market. Google’s YouTube accounts for 10% of all mobile data and the company owns 3 of the top 10 websites on the Net, and 6 of the top 20.

It would seem that a company with that much power getting into the ISP business should frighten the Free Press crowd.  Not only would they control what you access online, and how you find it, but as an ISP they would control your very connection.  Instead, Scott is cheering the move.

Ben might be well served to go back and read his remarks to the Hollywood Reporter a few weeks ago.

Giant companies come in, promise the world and say whatever they need to say to get the deal done, and then they reneg on those commitments and then they sit in court and litigate and eventually a settlement emerges, and they deliver only in the most minimal way. … The idea of giving them more power and control over the industry is somehow magically going to benefit consumers, who is buying that!?

Who’s buying it Ben?  Apparently you are.