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Google and Earthlink just snapped up San Fran's city-wide wireless bid, as long as the Board of Supervisors takes a city panel's recommendation (a recommendation needed for talks to begin).

Just to remind everyone, here are the loyalties involved:

¬ SF mayor Gavin Newsom was not on the panel. But he's buddies with Google's Larry and Sergey! Honest! He has picturesandhe'llshowyouwon'tyoupleaselookplease.
¬ Sky Dayton, Earthlink founder, was born and raised a Scientologist. Just sayin'.
¬ Sources inside Google have leaked — for years — rumors that Google hopes to blanket the nation with ad-supported wifi.
¬ Yes, ad-supported. So, local cafes, don't throw out your wifi routers. Some of us cherish an ad-free browsing (except for all the ads on the sites) session.
¬ Earthlink's job is to charge for faster access. Wait, wasn't Google the enemy of a tiered Internet?

So don your foil hats, avoid that wifi radiation, because we wouldn't want San Franciscans to get brainwashed — not when they're normally such rational folks.

San Francisco Picks Companies for Wi-Fi [AP News on Yahoo