"We are afraid of it Google. We are obliged to work with her to survive, but we are afraid of it. " The compelling confession of Mathieu Depfen, CEO of the German publishing group Axel Springer, with an open letter published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, shakes the debate about the omnipotence of the internet gossip. Not only because the word "fear" does not exist in the vocabulary of "players" as powerful as Deepfinger, but because it symbolizes the conflict of old and new order in the movement of information.
For decades, the Springer Group (which publishes Bild, Europe's leading newspaper in circulation, the Welt and owns dozens of print and electronic media) has represented "evil" in the eyes of some, as a pillar of a country's "information system" where publishers remain relatively robust, informing 80% of the over-14 public daily through print and online products their. It's just that they had never before faced such sweeping competition. The giants of the digital age, first of course Google (and closely followed by Facebook, Apple, Amazon), do not just dominate markets: they deregulate them.
Some people saw Deepfinger's letter, addressed to Google's strong man Eric Schmidt, as a starting point of serious concern, others as a confession of defeat. It is certainly the first time that such a "big fish" of media calls for public protection in order not to be devoured by a "hat" of the digital age. The problem, good or bad, is that he is right.
The "Big Brother"
When Deepner says that Axel Springer is David and Google is Goliath, he is right. When it likens the speed and scope of spreading the internet giants to the aggressive virus, she is right. He rightly says that the power of Google to content users or producers who do not approve of her methods of turning her back is as utopian as telling a nuclear energy adversary that she has to live without electricity. When she accuses Google of "rounding on the treasure of human data like the Phagnar giant in the Vaughan operas, it is not far from the truth. It is well-founded fears that all of its investments and future plans (from home technology and unmanned vehicles to floating facilities in international waters) are predicting a dystopian future where Google as a superstate will oversee every aspect of life us. And it is reasonable to claim that the argument "whoever has nothing to hide, has nothing to fear," Stasi said. "Only dictatorships prefer to have transparent citizens rather than free press," he says.
Unmanaged size
Deppner is no technophobe – far from it. 62% of his group's revenue already comes from digital media and he is determined to expand that figure. But he is also a keen manager, who knows how to read the numbers. Google has a 92% search engine share in Germany – even higher than in the US. Google "sends" content producers around the world 10 billionmillions επισκέπτες το μήνα. Οταν η Google αποφάσισε να αλλάξει έναν αλγόριθμό της, η επισκεψιμότητα στην by clicking here θυγατρικής εταιρείας του Axel Springer -κατά σύμπτωση ανταγωνιστικής προς τις δικές της υπηρεσίες- έπεσε κατά 70%. Με κεφαλαιοποίηση 350 δισ. ευρώ, έσοδα 60 δισ. και κέρδη 14 δισ. ευρώ το 2013, η Google είναι 20 φορές μεγαλύτερη σε κερδοφορία από την Axel Springer. «Η Google είναι για το Ιντερνετ ό,τι τα Γερμανικά Ταχυδρομεία ή η Ντόιτσε Τέλεκομ την εποχή των κρατικών μονοπωλίων. Για την ακρίβεια, είναι ένα παγκόσμιο ψηφιακό υπερμονοπώλιο», αναφέρει.
The problem, according to Deppner, is that Google invokes the freedom of the Internet and the interest of the user, who of course has the technological infrastructure to "file" - from which websites he visits to what he writes in his professional or personal emails. The problem is that it manipulates search results, displaying first web pages of its own interests, whether they are better or more popular. The problem is the arrogance and cynicism with which Google, through Eric Schmidt, declares: "We know where you are, we know where you went, we can know more or less what you think." The main problem is that the Commission's Competition Commission is pouring water on its wine and is oriented - according to him - to a compromise with Google, which will only provide its competitors with a privileged advertising space on its results pages: if they want to appear, they must to pay.
"We are obliged to cooperate with you, but we are not talking on equal terms," Deputy confesses, finding that without legal arsenals the strength and size of Google are unmanageable.
This was clearly acknowledged by members of a committee of the British Parliament in a report last September on "Creative Economy". They directly complained that Google has an open channel with Downing Street, that it is "charismatizing" British intellectual property and getting rich from advertising, that it is still directing users to pages that violate copyright law… "The problem is that the "Google has become so big and so powerful not only for the British, but also for the US government." "What can we, as legislators, do to help trapped users?"
The answer is not simple, since users do not realize the problem: Google services are so easy, convenient, helpful, that the general public consumes them indifferently (or ignoring) that the price is the potential "envelope" of. The most serious legislative effort to date has focused on protecting publishers from plagiarism: last year, at about this time, the previous Merkel government passed the so-called "Google tax" - a much-praised bill banning free reproduction of journalistic content in which Axel Springer had taken the lead. Only at the last minute the bill was stumbled, exempting from the obligation to pay royalties the "short excerpts" of articles, without clearly defining how "short" it should be (one word; one title; half a paragraph?) And remained practically inactive, because no publisher can be deprived of the traffic that Google provides. In short, no European law obliges it to pay for the content of third parties that it reproduces and distributes.
"Why are you fighting us?"
One of the most well-known American analysts of the digital economy, Jeff Jarvis, who has been invited to speak at conferences of both the Springer group and Google, faced the "attack" of German publishers with irony: They are looking for someone to blame for all their problems, they pursue state protectionism and undermine Germany's efforts to establish itself as a country of innovation, they remind children in the kindergarten yard who think they are being unfair in the game and run behind the teacher's skirt – some of what he wrote.
Google, however, denies playing the role of "bully" in the school yard. In his original article on FAZ, which triggered Deepfinger's letter, Eric Schmidt raises the question "Why are you fighting us?" And essentially identifies his company with the "Internet magic that gives everyone instant access to information until recently scarcely ". Interactive and landed, albeit from a power position, invokes numbers (the Internet has contributed by 25% to the increase in German exports in the last decade, only Google products have helped to establish the space 2007-2011 about 28.000 small German businesses, contributing 8 billion in GDP and 100.000 jobs, only 2013 Google has attributed to the affiliate publishers advertising revenue of 7 billion and goes on). "Collaborate with us and you will win, we are ready to respond to your concerns," he says. Notwithstanding, of course, the phrase "if you can, do it anyway".
The French "resistance"
Nikos Smyrnaios, an associate professor of media economics at the University of Toulouse, has been researching the issue for a decade. The key word he repeats in our phone conversation is deregulation. "Companies like Google have created an oligopolistic grid, financial and technological, having settled in the most strategic point: between content providers and the public. In order to access the information, we have to use their services. "The balance of power is in their favor and to the detriment of traditional 'players' in industries such as the media," he said. "The question is how strategic intermediaries work in a completely deregulated context, where there is no law outside the US to obey. They impose their rules on how information will be configured to circulate through their channels, while at the same time retaining much of the added value created by content producers, jeopardizing their very existence. The glaring example is tax evasion techniques - in France Google paid 2% of its turnover. " Last March, the tax authorities raided Google offices in France to leave the heavy "bill" of one billion euros of unpaid taxes. "It is interesting to see how this case will develop," said Mr. Smyrnaios.
Ten years ago, he recalls, he referred to the issue and was viewed as an alien. According to him, it is positive that the debate has begun - he finds out from the interest of his students when the omnipotence of the Internet giants is affected, a phenomenon that has no historical precedent.
"Their role, their oligopolistic character, their rights and obligations must be considered from the beginning. The issue is not just about the media. So far we do not know how much the Commission has the political will to impose barriers. "Alternative solutions always exist - what does not exist is education and awareness of the issue." In France, at least, the debate has matured. As early as 2002, when Google launched its news service, publishers saw the threat and began pushing - sometimes to streamline search results (succeeded), sometimes for a law to secure their revenue (failed).
In 2013, in a crucial development, they reached a settlement with Google, which agreed to pay the amount of 60 million euros for three years, in a special fund "in favor of strengthening the online presence of French publishers" (corresponding agreement, for a much smaller amount, it was also done in Belgium). In this case, too, the settlement was made on Google terms - in the form of a donation and not a legal obligation, so as not to create a doomsday. "Perhaps the Germans are now pushing in this direction," Mr. Smyrnaios suggests.
