Monetizing The World’s Information

The Financial Times wrote today on the ambitions of Google Book search and the dangers that the GBS poses. As the piece notes, and we have long argued, approving the Google Book Settlement and handing Google a monopoly would “make it a dangerous threat to competitors.” While Google likes to talk about their voracious scanning (15 million books at last count) in the frame of its stated corporate mission (“to organize the world’s information”), the fact of the matter is that, in practice, Google is monetizing the world’s information.

Google loves to tout its digital smorgasbord of products and services, but doesn’t like to talk about the fact that 98% of its astounding revenues come from advertising, and more specifically, directed advertising targeted at Google users based on information that Google collects about them. In reality, Google users aren’t the “customers” – Google’s users are the “product” that Google sells to advertisers. Google Books is no exception. The Financial Times writes, “imagine much cheaper e-books that contain real-time embedded ads – flights to Sweden in the margins of a Stieg Larsson book, for example,” and that Google will “be able to sell all the in-copyright but out-of-print books it has scanned too, and subscriptions for the whole shebang to libraries and universities.”

On a separate, but related, matter, The New York Times editorialized on Google’s proposed acquisition of ITA Software (a leading provider of air travel search software), arguing that “Google cannot abuse its dominance in search to shut out the competition.” These concerns are equally applicable to the GBS – a Google monopoly, whether over books or over travel, and whether acquired by an abuse of the class action process or by purchasing another company, is bad for competition and bad for consumers.

On Dec 21, 2010
Posted by OBA.
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Open Book Alliance Amicus Brief

The Open Book Alliance's filing in response to the proposed Google Book Settlement (PDF)
The Open Book Alliance's Supplemental Brief - Jan. 2010 (PDF)

Mission

The mass digitization of books promises to bring tremendous value to consumers, libraries, scholars, and students. The Open Book Alliance will work to advance and protect this promise. And, by...

What Experts Are Saying About the Settlement…

Find out what government officials, the academic community, consumer groups, libraries, and others are saying about the proposed settlement

Fact v. Fiction

Download "Fact v. Fiction: The Proposed Google Book Settlement" (pdf)

Important Dates

December 14, 2009
Notice begins

January 28, 2010
Deadline for authors to opt out of the settlement

January 28, 2010
Deadline to file objections and/or amicus briefs

February 4, 2010
Deadline to file notice of intent to appear at Fairness Hearing

February 4, 2010
DOJ response

February 11, 2010
Plaintiffs move for final approval

February 18, 2010
Final Fairness Hearing

March 31, 2011
Deadline to claim Books and Inserts

Open Book Alliance