[discuss] [governance] Springer vs. Google

Mon May 5 08:33:12 UTC 2014

Dear Wolfgang,

We should all regret that the media didn't come together against Google on this. 

The battle is not between Döpfner and Schmidt: it is between the media at large and Google. All over Europe, and beyond, the same battle is raging. It is unseen in History that one single media uses other media contents for its own benefit, and is hardly sharing a tiny part, for those media strong enough to complain and sometimes obtain a bit more. Google considers that it 'gives back' by linking the aggregated content to their original source. In many case this bring petty money. With a model that would find a balance with 60% advertising and 40% content revenues, Google has now taken by 15 to 30% of these advertising revenues away from the media. And we know that Google model is even not secure, as the per-click is losing its value everyday. Over the last quarter, Google click value has lost 9%, meaning that its model might not be sustainable. 

Concentration is killing media, diversity of media, diversity of opinion, reduction of debate within our societies. Concentration, and dominatio are bad to democracy, endangering the fragile balance any society is trying to keep aloft. 

In its annual financial report, Google shows in a very un-detailed fashion, a gross revenue that do not count what it gives back to other media. That is the normal standard accounting. Any revenue generated by a media, and given back as a commission to partners, should be included in its books. There is some obvious reason for Google to make it so.

 It means:
- Google makes much more revenues than what it declares (getting it closer to 100 B USD
- Still what is paid back by Google to each media does not match the economical requirement to be even for these media. Even with that pocket money the majority of media are either starving or dying. Great job. And still no public regulation, as we have had for the press, the radio or television. And it is not just the story of big fishes eating small fishes.

I am happy with Google making profits. One cannot be happy with the desertification of media, and should look into all of that money that Google pushes around to secure its position all over the planet. 

Journalists might be to blame for losing some of their wit to explore, investigate the political and economical powers, becoming servants to the dominants. Still, the economical reading is clear. Google is destroying many jobs in that field. 

Dominatio is not welcome to preserve social balance and justice.

Jean-Christophe

Le 5 mai 2014 à 10:00, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang a écrit :

> Hi,
> 
> just FYI: The  battle between Mr. Döpfner (Springer is, inter alia, the publisher of the German tabloid BILD Zeitung) and Mr. Schmidt (Google) in Germany is not new, it is a very old one. It goes back to 2009 when Springer tried to convince the FDP-CDU government to establish a "Leistungsschutzrecht". With this law Springer wanted to have money for the snippets Google News (and other news aggregators) do publish from the newspapers owned by Springer.  With other words: A (German) one million dollar business wanted to have some money from another (American) million dollar business with the help of the government.  A delicate aspect of this is, that there was - in the background - a family linkage. There were two brothers: one worked in the establishment of Springer, the other one in the Chancellory. The guy from the government has now left the governmental office and works for BMW. 
> 
> I have my doubts whether Springer has any idea to strengthen the democratic multistakeholder Internet Governance model and to include civil society into Internet policy development and decision making. Users/readers were not asked when the parliament discussed the "Leistungsschutzrecht". 
> 
> Wolfgang   
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> Von: discuss-bounces at 1net.org im Auftrag von Milton L Mueller
> Gesendet: Mo 05.05.2014 01:54
> An: michael gurstein
> Cc: '1Net List'
> Betreff: Re: [discuss] [bestbits] Shoshanna Zuboff: Dark Google
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, the copyright interests and other threatened old media have been at war with Google for some time. Odd to see Mr. Gurstein siding with the MPAA and the book publishers, but when you have no consistent principles I guess the enemy of your enemy is your friend, etc. 
> 
> 
> 
> From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of michael gurstein
> Yes, that well known left wing conspiracy hack err the head of Axel Springer Corp (the largest publishing group in Europe) effectively calling for global regulation of Google (the monopoly provider of an increasing range of 
> 
> 
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