{"id":13765,"date":"2014-04-17T11:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13765"},"modified":"2014-04-17T11:00:33","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T11:00:33","slug":"german-publisher-warns-against-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13765","title":{"rendered":"German publisher warns against Google"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mathias<\/a>
Mathias D\u00f6pfner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The head of Europe\u2019s biggest newspaper publisher by circulation has accused Google of seeking to establish a digital \u201csuperstate\u201d free from the constraints of antitrust regulators and privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

Google controls so much data, becoming the global equivalent of what Deutsche Post once was to mail or Deutsche Telekom to making phone calls in Germany, which is why it is so important for the American giant to be transparent and fair,<\/p>\n

In a provocative open letter to Google chief Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Axel Springer, says: \u201cWe are afraid of Google. I have to say so clearly and honestly because hardly any of my colleagues dares to do so publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mathias D\u00f6pfner\u2019s assault on Google begins on familiar terrain by lamenting the US tech company\u2019s dominance of the search engine market, but shifts into broader anxiety about the extent of Google\u2019s ambitions, including its development of driverless cars and purchase of dronemaker, Titan Aerospace.<\/p>\n

He writes: \u201cGoogle not only knows where we’re going in our cars but also what we do while we\u2019re driving. Forget Big Brother \u2013 Google is better!\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter is published in Wednesday\u2019s edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, an upmarket conservative daily which is not part of the Springer stable, and responds to a guest column in the same newspaper by Mr Schmidt.<\/p>\n

In his column, Google\u2019s executive chairman welcomed an advertising partnership between the US company and Springer, which appeared to mark the end of a long confrontation between the two.<\/p>\n

Springer is among the publishers that lobbied for ancillary copyright legislation that would give publishers the right to license their web content for use by others.<\/p>\n

The changes to copyright law were passed by Germany\u2019s parliament last year but watered down to enable news aggregators to continue to publish newspaper excerpts free of charge.<\/p>\n

Mr D\u00f6pfner criticised the EU\u2019s recent settlement with Google, which permitted the internet group to continue publishing paid-for links at the top of its pages ahead of algorithmically chosen results.<\/p>\n

Google agreed with Brussels to allow rival search engines a showing alongside its own results, a concession Mr D\u00f6pfner described as \u201cprotection money\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the saying goes: \u2018if you don\u2019t want us to kill you, you\u2019ll have to pay,\u2019\u201d the Springer chief executive wrote.
\nThe combative letter describes the US company as \u201cGoliath\u201d to Springer\u2019s \u201cDavid\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a passage speculating that Google may be planning to build offshore working environments to escape democratic accountability, Mr D\u00f6pfner writes: \u201cIs Google planning to operate in a legal vacuum without the hassle of anti-trust regulators and data protection\u2026 does Google plan in all seriousness a digital superstate in which its citizens will naturally only do good and \u201cwon\u2019t be evil\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springer, publisher of the tabloid Bild, has long been reviled by German leftwingers for its ultraconservative views and political influence.<\/p>\n

Mr D\u00f6pfner has reoriented the business away from print, selling regional newspapers including the Hamburger Abendblatt, the first daily newspaper created by company founder Axel Springer, and acquiring a 24 hour news channel that will be used to supply video for its digital platforms.<\/p>\n

A Google spokesman declined to comment, but referred to Mr Schmidt\u2019s column last week, in which he called for co-operation with publishers and warned against \u201cheavy-handed regulation\u201d such as copyright charges.<\/p>\n

Mr Schmidt wrote that such regulation risked creating an “innovation desert” in Europe. \u201cSome companies will leave and, worse still, others will never get off the ground \u2013 blocked by rules designed to protect incumbents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: FT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of Europe\u2019s biggest newspaper publisher by circulation has accused Google of seeking to establish a digital \u201csuperstate\u201d free from the constraints of antitrust regulators and privacy concerns. Google controls so much data, becoming the global equivalent of what Deutsche Post once was to mail or Deutsche Telekom to making phone calls in Germany, … Continue reading “German publisher warns against Google”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8836,8835,51,2130,8834,8837,1638],"class_list":["post-13765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-axel-springer","tag-bild","tag-germany","tag-google","tag-mathias-dopfner","tag-superstate","tag-us"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/dopfner.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13767,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13765\/revisions\/13767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}