Google’s acquisition of YouTube is huge news in both the financial and technological worlds — it’s been several years since anybody paid ten figures for a website that didn’t make any money — and it will have an effect in the net neutrality fight as well. Writing for the Financial Times this week, economics professor Thomas Hazlett points out that Google has become

…the leading champion of the hottest topic in technology policy over the past year, asserting that if web innovation such as theirs was to be retained, new laws were warranted. … “Network neutrality” rules were needed, Google argued, because the architecture of the internet demanded it. That structure relies on traffic flowing freely over a network that is “open, end to end”.

Yet the capitalist engine that powers the internet demands something completely different, as Google’s acquisition of YouTube makes clear. That strategy is to integrate Google’s search and advertising sales with YouTube’s users, which could potentially impede access to one of the hottest technologies by other service providers. Jeremy Schoemaker, a net economy expert, sees the deal as superb for Google, “merging to form the biggest video network” and winning a “land-grab for publisher space”. Perhaps even better, it boxes out a rival: “This move is a total ‘in your face’ to Microsoft,” which had made YouTube an offer for an advertising agreement.

So does Google fancy itself an aloof public benefactor or a hard-charging business? It seems to fancy itself as both, but only Google executives and their mothers are likely to believe the two priorities can coexist. It won’t be long before Google’s obligation to their shareholders interferes with their lofty public statements, especially once they start integrating YouTube with their search and advertising features. Precursor Group founder Scott Cleland gets down to details:

Will the Google “searchopolist” with 50% share of the search market pledge to not “block, degrade, or impair video or other content of consumers or competitors? Will they agree to not discriminate against any of “the people’s” youtube videos by giving them a higher/lower search ranking than others based on how much they pay for the search keyword or advertising? Will they keep youtube “democratic” where everyone’s video is treated exactly equally with everyone else’s video?

We’ve been trying to think of a good example of public hypocrisy to illustrate this. It’s not quite fair to compare the company to a single person caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and we wouldn’t go so far as to compare it to Enron. So, dear readers, think of it a little like the fight between Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey from Grey’s Anatomy. Most of the time they’re Burke and McDreamy, saving lives, and entertaining key demographics every Thursday night (and Friday repeats).

In the same way, Google makes a good show of being more than a normal company — just about everyone with a modem has heard their motto “don’t be evil” at least once. But just as Burke and McDreamy are actually real people who get into fights and cause trouble on the set, Google is a self-interested company like any other and therefore will keep it’s eye on the bottom line.

And hey, there’s nothing wrong with that — they’re incorporated as a for-profit enterprise, not a non-profit. But if you try to pretend you’re one thing while you’re actually something else, well, don’t be surprised when everybody notices — and you end up in all the wrong gossip columns.

Note to readers: The Hands Off team has one member who is completely obsessed with Grey’s Anatomy. You may notice more references to the show in our posts, with this being its second mention. Stay tuned!