Send this story to a friend
* Mandatory field.
DAILY NEWS
Jul 7, 2008 4:47 PM
Bell Canada, Google Exchange Barbs and Executives
TEXT SIZE 
Google has named a new Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Most recently, Patrick Pichette served as President of Operations at Bell Canada.
Google has also made public a statement to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), in which Google says Bell's Internet throttling activities are illegal.
"Bell claims its throttling of peer-to-peer applications is a reasonable form of network management. Google respectfully disagrees. Network management does not include Canadian carriers' blocking or degrading lawful applications that consumers wish to use," Google's submission to the CRTC states.
Other complaints to the CRTC about Internet throttling activities have been made by industry associations. As a result, the CRTC is investigating the matter, and has stated it will report in the fall.
"From consumer, competition and innovation perspectives, throttling applications that consumers choose is inconsistent with a content and application-neutral [I]nternet, and a violation of Canadian telecommunications law, which forbids unfair discrimination and undue or unreasonable preferences and requires that regulation be technologically and competitively neutral," Google's statement continues.
Reporting to Google Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, Pichette will start on August 1, and he will assume responsibility for the company's financial operations and become CFO on August 12.
Pichette brings nearly 20 years of experience in financial operations and management in the telecommunications sector, including 7 years at Bell Canada, which he joined in 2001 as Executive Vice President of Planning and Performance Management.
During his time at Bell Canada, he held various executive positions, including CFO from 2002 until the end of 2003, and was instrumental in the management of the most extensive communications network in Canada and its ongoing migration to a new national IP-based infrastructure.
"Patrick brings the expertise and track record of a successful CFO, along with the hands-on business experience of a seasoned operations executive," said Dr. Schmidt. "This strong combination of skills and experience will be an important addition to Google's executive management team and will support our ongoing efforts to increase value for our users, advertisers and partners." Schmidt added, "On behalf of all my colleagues at Google, we welcome Patrick and, once again, thank George Reyes for all that he's done for Google."
Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in major global markets. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.
