Does Google’s right hand know what its left hand is doing? That’s the obvious question given this article from Reuters:

New Internet TV services such as Joost and YouTube may bring the global network to its knees, Internet companies said on Wednesday, adding they are already investing heavily just to keep data flowing.

Google, which acquired online video sharing site YouTube last year, said the Internet was not designed for TV.

It even issued a warning to companies that think they can start distributing mainstream TV shows and movies on a global scale at broadcast quality over the public Internet.

“The Web infrastructure, and even Google’s (infrastructure) doesn’t scale. It’s not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect,” Vincent Dureau, Google’s head of TV technology, said at the Cable Europe Congress.

The phoniness is so obvious, it’s eye-rolling! Google paid the princely sum of $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube precisely to increase video traffic online. Now the company is objecting to Internet-based television because it… well, increases video traffic online.

Everyone knows that consumers’ TV habits are changing. In January 2006, not a single major network streamed its programming. Today, they all do. Add in YouTube and iPod downloads and you see why commentators have been using the phrases “TV viewers” and “paradigm shift” in the same sentence a lot.

Google’s obviously staking its claim to consumers’ eyeballs by planting scary stories designed more for public consumption than serious analysis. Honestly, you can’t get more transparently self-serving than this.