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Google Finance Launches Streaming News: Details Here

2009-12-04T13:23:22Z

Today, Google (Google) announced that it's bringing streaming financial and market news to Google Finance. News (news) will be streamed from 8 a.m.- 5:30 p.m. ET, offering a 90-minute buffer around U.S. trading hours. Streaming quotes and streaming news will make it easier for those who want to keep an eye on what's going on -- and you don't have to constantly refresh.

Todd Kashdan: What Maids Teach Us About Physical Health, Life Longevity

2009-12-04T12:41:09Z

I have no idea what the politically correct term is for women who clean hotel rooms. Maid? Chambermaid? Housekeeper? Female room attendant? Hoover lady? If I offend anyone, my apologies for failing to master the appropriate terminology. But everything else is true and rather inoffensive. In this brief post, you will learn a single secret to physical fitness and mental health that might translate into longer, better living.

Hotel maids are notorious for waking up at ridiculously early hours to start working. They also are confronted with unwanted flesh at surprising intervals and in surprising situations. There's the man who refuses to make a peep while sitting on the toilet until spotted. There's the man who opens the front door with swinging genitalia lacking a single synaptic connection to the idea of covering up. There's the guest's drunken friend who rests peacefully face to the ground, ass in the air, burrowed behind the curtains. I'm not being sexist. Ninety-seven out of 100 encounters, the naked being will be male. But I digress.

Hotel maids are stressed out and thus, have little time for a formal workout. If you don't believe me, go ask a hotel maid how often they go the gym or jog in the park. They certainly do enough bending, lifting, climbing, and moving to burn off calories. Which begs the question -- what if maids were made mindfully aware and open to the idea that a fitness routine is embedded into their job? Could changing their mindset lead to actual changes in their physical and mental health? A few researchers sought to find out.

As the most minimal of interventions, one group of hotel maids were informed about the importance of daily exercise and how their regimen of climbing stairs, vacuuming, cleaning linen, and scrubbing tables and tubs affects their body. They were given exact details, for example, a 140-pound women burns 50 calories after vacuuming for 15 minutes. They were told that their typical workday far exceeds the exercise recommendations of the Surgeon General. A second group of hotel maids were given the same information about the benefits of exercise but weren't told anything about how their work effort is in fact, exercise. With this comparison group, the researchers could determine whether there was some unique benefit to being mindful about what constitutes exercise.

So what happened when these maids were tracked down a month later? After only four weeks of learning that work might serve as exercise, the maids lost an average of two pounds, lowered their blood pressure by an average of 10 points, and trimmed their body fit even though they didn't change their diet or add any exercise to their routine. The only thing that changed was that how they attended to their physical exertion at work. That's it! As for the comparison group, they basically remained in the same shape as when they started.

Yet another testament to how our mindset can alter our bodies. We can't always feel good but we can almost always be profoundly aware and open to what we do. Being fully alive during these moments are the building blocks to a life well lived.

Here's a question that we should all be asking -- what do I fail to notice in my daily routine that's important to my physical, mental, and social well-being? And tell your hotel maid how muscular her arms are looking so she can live a long, healthy life...

Dr. Todd B. Kashdan is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at George Mason University. He is the author of Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life. For more about his books and research, go to www.toddkashdan.com

Visit his new website featuring the Laboratory for the Study of Social Anxiety, Character Strengths, and Related Phenomena

Ancient Pompeii Ruins Hit Google Street View (PHOTOS)

2009-12-04T11:03:14Z

Google Street View, a feature of Google Maps that allows users to zoom into a location and peruse it in a 3D environment, has already mapped over 100 cities around the world with street-level shots taken with with a car-mounted camera.

Now, it's hit Pompeii.

As part of its effort to move beyond roads, and map, in 3D, amusement parks, college campuses, and hiking trails, Google Street View has just added incredible, interactive panoramas of the ancient ruins of Pompeii.

Thanks to the new images, now you can virtually explore the UNESCO world heritage site in Naples, Italy, with 360 degree horizontal views, and 290 vertical views. (see screenshot below)

Meander through the ancient columns, inspect the worn rock, and clamber around the historic site on Google here.

If that doesn't give you your fix of historic sightseeing, check out Google Street View's interactive view of Stonhenge, or for something totally different, see the Street View shots of Shamu, leaping dolphins, and more from SeaWorld.

Learn more about Street View from Google here, and get the full story about the Google Trike used to snap photos of off-road spots here.

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Google Dictionary Launches: Get Definitions From Wikipedia And The Web

2009-12-04T08:09:32Z

What does "googling" mean? Google can tell you.

The search giant has quietly rolled out Google Dictionary, which presents definitions and synonyms. Exactly what you'd expect from a dictionary.

In addition to Google's own database of definitions, looking up a word on the Dictionary website provides a list of definitions pulled from a variety of academically authoritative sources (oh, and Wikipedia).

Microsoft, Google Vie To Become Most Popular On Campus

2009-12-04T04:07:27Z

With the recession taking a bite out of university endowments and public school budgets alike, the competition between Google and Microsoft to convert the nation's colleges, universities and schools to the companies' free e-mail and other IT services that run on the Internet "cloud" -- outsourcing that can save a large university hundreds of thousands of dollars a year -- has only grown more fierce. With the two companies fighting to baptize a future generation of computer users with their products, the stakes for both are significant.

Dr. Hendrie Weisinger: A College Tour De Force

2009-12-03T17:19:08Z

It's no picnic waiting for a train on a chilly Sunday morning but that is exactly what I was doing at my local train station in Westport, CT when my attention was drawn to three teenagers who were in a close huddle a few feet from me. I knew they weren't standing around a fire, nor did I think they were designing football plays. I didn't smell any smoke either.

Since I didn't hear the train a coming, I started to banter. "What are you guys up to?" Without breaking their huddle, the big kid voiced, "We are visiting colleges."

"Oh, going into the city to see NYU and Columbia?" (two popular schools for Westport students)
"No. Right now I am leaving MIT and now I will tour Stanford."

The smallest of the pack broke the huddle, and before my curiosity could act, showed me his iPhone. "I'm going to Harvard. Look."

Easier than making apple pie, he pushed a button and showed me a hot new iPhone application that college bound students and their parents are sure to love -- college tours packed with "insider" information that familiarize students with the schools they wish to attend.

"Show me MIT. I've given a lot of lectures there." In a second, I was strolling M.I.T. campus.

The small kid continued to educate me. Watch what this does. Calling into play one of the application's innovative features, I could now read specific information about the specific location that I am viewing. Very sweet, I thought.

"It uses a new technology,"...but before the mall kid could explain, the train pulled up. I parted ways with the college bound students but not before I asked them to tell me the name of the application. It's called uTourX.

I had a good idea. In the next few weeks, I would be speaking to executives and managers from companies such as State Farm, Prudential, Medtronic, Attachmate, Nationwide, Merrill Lynch, United, Shire andBoeing, to name just a few. I've learned over the years that top executive from top companies like to hear about up and coming start-ups and clever applications of technology. I thought the company behind uTourX might fit the bill. I was also working on an article about management styles in startup hi-tech companies. Some would say I could kill two birds with one stone.

It was easy to find out that the company that created uTourX is called oSnapplications . Although I shouldn't of been surprised -- not in this day and age -- I was to find out that oSnapplications' corporate makeup was no more than a very small band of young entrepreneurs with hi-tech skill and savvy.

I remembered that the small kid from the train station told me uTourX used a new technology so using my investigative reporting skills, I tracked down 17-year old Chief Technology Officer Mr. Ian Cinnamon.

"Hello, May I please speak to Ian Cinnamon?"

"Sure, may I tell him who's calling?" The voice definitely sounded more motherly than receptionist.

"Yes, it's Dr. Weisinger. I'd like to speak to him about uTourX."

A half minute later, "Hi, this is Ian. Can I help you?"

I explained the purpose of my call and for the next twenty minutes, the young Chief Technology Officer filled me in about oSnapplications and uTourX. I learned that he had met his partner and president of the company, Max Uhlenhuth, when they both attended the Research Science Institute summer program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I also learned that Mr. Cinnamon ("Call me Ian," he reminded me several times) had developed other successful Apple applications but he was clearly psyched about uTourX.

"This is going to help a lot of college bound students. It will give them a preview of a school they may wish to attend but might not have the time or money to actually make the visit. The tours might also get a students interested in schools that were off their map. Also..."

It was refreshing to hear the passion, the conviction, the belief that Ian projected in explaining how uTourX would revolutionize college tours and in the process, help hundreds of thousands, (or was it millions?) of college bound students. Apple would love this kid, I thought.

He then went on to tell me that their business plan allows other students to make some easy cash. Naturally, I asked "How?"

"Well, we want students from colleges and universities all over the world to create their own college tour for uTourX. Students can put their unique "inside university/college information," on their tour -- it's a new technology called augmented reality. Every time someone views the tour, the tour creator gets reimbursed. In effect, their application becomes part of our application. We hope to get thousands and thousands of tour submissions. For some schools, like Michigan, Arizona State, UCLA, we could get a hundred tours each. Students who make the best, most creative, funniest tours, will probably go to the bank often. I believe we are investing in the creativity of our fellow students!"

On that note -- he did sound a little like Buffet -- I ended the interview.

Later that evening, I thought about uTourX, oSnapplications and my conversation with the "emotionally intelligent" CTO. Then, it suddenly hit me. I thumbed through my calendar, and it became very clear what the next two months had in store for me.

Why should students have all the uTourX fun and make all the money? My plan materialized. When I speak to Nationwide in Columbus, I would create a tour of Ohio State. In Seattle, after a presentation to Medtronic, I would knock out a University of Washington tour. Speaking to State Farm in Portland would give me the time to tour Portland State.

A seminar for the Institute for Management Studies in San Francisco, and Los Angeles, would add USF, UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, and if time permitted, Santa Monica Community College. I was happy I was going to Atlanta to speak to the Federal Reserve Bank because I wanted Emory on my app too.

And so it went. An hour later, I counted close to 100 university/colleges and if I spent several hours in Boston, I could add twenty junior colleges! Furthermore, I realized that I could have two tours for each school -- one for students, one for parents. I just doubled my fortune.

I went to sleep excited about my new endeavor but I knew I had my work cut out for me. First step, I'd have to buy an iPhone! Then I would be able to give Mr. Ian Cinnamon, CTO of oSnapplications a college tour de force!

Bing Vs. Google: Three Ways Bing Is Better

2009-12-03T14:19:32Z

This morning, Microsoft employees demonstrated a long list of enhancements to their Bing search engine at a press event at the company's San Francisco office.

That office is next door to the city's newest, splashiest, most expensive shopping center, the Westfield, and after sitting through the Bing demo, I'm sure Microsoft parked its employees next to a mall on purpose. Many new Bing improvements, such as maps with interactive driving directions, are mere catch-up to what Google has done for years. But others, driven by heavy market research aimed at finding ways Google is missing the mark, show how very much the kind of people who use the Internet has changed since a few years ago.

In short, the people who use search engines today are nothing like the people who build them. Online, the normals have finally displaced the geeks.

Google Public DNS: Google's Next Step To A FASTER Internet

2009-12-03T12:59:37Z

Google announced plans for Google Public DNS today, a new service that will provide consumers with a DNS service provider alternative.

DNS, or Domain Name System, deals with the conversion of IP addresses with vanity, easy-to-remember domain names.

The Google Public DNS service is part of Google's plan to make the Internet faster, and it will provide other benefits as well, including a more stable browser and boosted security against virus, spam, and malware sites.

Google announced in a blog post:

Our research has shown that speed matters to Internet users, so over the past several months our engineers have been working to make improvements to our public DNS resolver to make users' web-surfing experiences faster, safer and more reliable

Free Christmas Card Ideas: Google Gives Out FREE Holiday Postcards

2009-12-03T11:48:33Z

If you're not usually the card-mailing type, Google has you covered. The company has launched a Gmail holiday card service. Using the Web form, you can send a postcard with your choice of design to anyone in the United States (one free card per person, it appears).

Anis Shivani: "Don't Be Evil": How Larry Page and Sergey Brin Really Think and Should We Worry About Google's Dominance

2009-12-03T11:26:38Z

INSIDE LARRY & SERGEY'S BRAIN
By Richard L. Brandt
Portfolio, 244 pages. $24.95

'Searching and organizing all the world's information is an unusually important task that should be carried out by a company that is trustworthy and interested in the public good."
--Larry & Sergey's statement to Wall Street in their 2004 IPO filing.

The challenge for any chronicler of a Silicon Valley company is to distinguish between hype and reality. In Google's case, because of its indisputable financial success, the task becomes harder. After all, when Google has cornered $20 billion of advertising revenue a year--revenue that has come from struggling newspapers and other traditional producers of "content," which are in danger of losing their footing altogether--the vast flows of money can hide many simmering problems. It is remarkable that after ten years of escalating market dominance, Google's one truly successful innovation remains its search engine; it has developed more than 150 other applications, but they're either not as popular as competitors' products, or have failed to generate revenue.

The first question Richard L. Brandt addresses is Google's ambition to be the world's librarian. Google has always been very clear that it wants to digitize every bit of information. This raises obvious questions about the power Google possesses over this information. Why is it that the world's governments are not organizing and digitizing this information? Obviously, it's natural to worry about a single corporation becoming the potential gateway to everything that has ever been written or said. Since Brandt did not have personal access to the Google founders, one might have expected greater skepticism toward the self-proclaimed ethical motivations of Google's founders--embodied in their ubiquitous motto, "Don't be evil." This ethos must be seen in the context of the period of Google's emergence; the great computer giant of its era, Microsoft, was being assailed from all corners--the public, competitors, and governments alike--for being the epitome of evil.

Libraries, it is to be noted, do not charge for their content. So far, neither does Google. But we are at a very early stage yet in the life of the Internet, and it remains to be seen how this evolves. That the gatekeeper should be a single private entity, which moreover imposes its own model of advertising (which may or may not work for every content provider), should provoke concern. It is the business model inside Google's algorithms--Google's own brain--that we should be concerned about, rather than the degree to which Larry Page and Sergey Brin's brains might be virtuous and ethical.

Google is the single greatest force currently putting pressure on existing business models for publishing, broadcasting, communications, and entertainment. Google, with its Android phone software, has entered the telephone business. The way Google looks at it, all forms of communication can be redefined as search--search according to Google, that is. Google is wary of competing portals--such as Facebook, or the iPhone, or anywhere else users congregate and feel most comfortable--posing a challenge to its preeminence as the Internet's homepage of choice. It has tried to keep the homepage simple, free as it is of clutter and distractions, and has not shown any inclination to be a portal, such as AOL, paradigmatically, tried to do.

But as time goes by and we get more and more used to Google as the homepage, it becomes more and more difficult for any competitor to pose a challenge. Inertia is a large part of the explanation, but so is ease of use--in that sense Google harkens back to the revolutionary Mosaic and Netscape browsers, which made the Internet accessible to all. Undoubtedly, Google's search produces better results than any competitor's, which is partly due to the self-reinforcing nature of Google searches. The more consumers use Google search (yielding cookies that refine future searches by the same user), the better it gets at what it does. In all these ways, Google gives us what we need, with the least friction possible; yet in all these ways Google also poses a potential danger of a monopoly using the wealth of the world's knowledge and information for its commercial purposes.

Certainly, reading about Google's success story is a restorative counterpoint to the legends of evil committed in the recent past by Wall Street, Detroit, and other American corporations, which created little value yet rewarded executives extravagantly. Google has fundamentally altered the world, probably far exceeding the capacity of any single government to do so. Politics is now potentially more transparent and accountable than ever before. Users can find information cheaper and quicker and better than ever before. There is no aspect of our lives that hasn't shifted, sometimes crucially, in response to the revolution of information Google has been instrumental in bringing about. Yet Google aims to be all-encompassing, and that always has to bring its own hazards. As Brandt notes, Google claimed it wasn't interested in developing a browser, but it did, with Chrome. Google is posing a direct challenge to Apple's iPhone, with its Android telephone software, available through Verizon. When Google introduced Gmail, it was revealed that information compiled from emails would be used to target advertisements to users.

Brandt, like other chroniclers of Google, emphasizes Larry & Sergey's similar intellectual upbringing, their common Montessori background, and their shared experience at Stanford graduate school, all of which are generally said to be the source of the free-flowing environment at the company. Yet this is too banal to be given much explanatory credence when it comes to Google's eventual success. There is nothing particularly new in this, as far as Silicon Valley goes. The challenge for a chronicler of Google is to separate the corporate mythology--the way the Google founders talk about the 20% time engineers are allowed to devote to their own projects, or the way the company has bent over backwards to provide food and daycare, and even massages, on campus--from the corporate business philosophy.

To the extent that Larry & Sergey are math prodigies--or computer geeks, if you will--and lack the humanistic dimension, we are carried forth into the brave new world on the wave of their shortcomings. They both seem to display a cavalier disregard for the value of content, as Brandt suggests at numerous points. Why would authors write books for free? Only to enrich Google with advertising dollars? What would be the quality of free books? If the existing publishing, journalistic, and broadcasting environments entirely collapsed tomorrow, one suspects Larry & Sergey wouldn't be too unhappy. Content--some sort of content--can always be procured. Free, as Chris Anderson recently pointed out in his new book, can work for authors, musicians, and other content producers, but why should advertising be the sole support for creative work? Surely that would have an effect on the quality of journalism or writing, if that were the case. Yet Google's brain knows no other dimension than to capture advertising dollars through the greatest possible numbers of clicks.

Outside Google, the talk may all be about controlled chaos, yet hierarchies obtain--as they must--within Google. Engineers are a cut above nonengineers. The company makes no bones about it. Again, this reflects Larry & Sergey's bias that data drives everything, that there is no other calculus for decision-making. One might argue that this dilutes the quality of Google's search. It's better than anything else out there, but what is out there is pathetic, as measured by the utterly soulless efforts of Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL, which wanted to serve as portals where users were captured and walled-off from other options, rather than as neutral arbiters of information. So Google search is an advantage over these barbaric early manifestations of what search never should have been, yet the vaunted PageRank algorithm often fails to value quality over quantity. And moreover, Google doesn't seem particularly interested in measuring the quality of, say, a New York Review of Books article on a particular subject, or of a scientific journal's, compared to the random musings of some uninformed ignoramus, should that have succeeded in getting the most views. The elevation of the engineer's data-driven, linear, antihumanist mind might have something to do with this manifestation in search results.

PageRank, Larry's great innovation, we learn from Brandt's interviews with Google's competitors, might not have been such a great innovation after all. The technology was open and available to others to exploit; the fact that they didn't do so speaks to Google's competitors' disinterest in making the Internet experience pleasurable and efficient and quick for users. Yet the public mythology of Google's discovery of its magic algorithm needs to be brought down a few further notches. CEO Eric Schmidt--who was brought on with some reluctance at first, after insistence by Google's venture capitalists--is variously seen as not being particularly effective, or as the genius who produces the first part of the "controlled chaos" equation. Actually, it doesn't take a genius to be the CEO of a corporation in as dominant a position, relative to its competitors, as Google currently is.

There's no denying that Google's corporate vision includes making things as easy for the user as possible. After all, the dominant late-nineties Internet portal was AOL, and we all remember how user-friendly that was! And we all remember the horrendous banner advertisements flashed on MSN. Google has insisted on not including advertisements on its homepage. Advertisements, when they do appear to the side of search results, are unobtrusive. Yet, again, there is a sense in which advertising--because it is so effective in the form Google uses it--has become the engine of growth, rather than being the outcome of the growth of valuable information on the Internet. It makes no difference to Google what viewers view, as long as it results in advertising dollars. AdWords, borrowed form GoTo (later renamed Overture), which places advertising on search pages, and AdSense, which places ads on other Web sites, are the two key innovations. In response, competitors like Microsoft have eyed Yahoo to try to develop a counter to Google's dominance of the advertising market, but nothing has come of it so far. The logical conclusion to what Google is doing would seem to be the eventual end of all forms of middlemen, so that advertising becomes completely automated, without the human touch. Not everyone will lament the end of the advertising executive or salesman, but there will be other consequences for content should that happen--consequences we ought to think about.

We have let Google slide on many things--its China censorship, to allow it to remain viable in that huge market (though nothing Google does seems to stall the rise of Baidu, the local search engine); its occasionally cavalier public posture toward privacy; and its indifference toward copyright laws--because we feel good about Google. That is both the most tremendous asset (unmatched by, say, Microsoft) and also perhaps the weakest foundation on which to build the world's greatest library. On the other hand, Brandt is right to wish that Google might become an ISP. Our experience of accessing the Internet would probably become much better. We shall see if Larry & Sergey's collective brain can keep up with the spontaneous evolution of the Internet, as embodied in the worldwide community of users. That is the greatest logic of all, and it may supersede the planning and visionary capacities of any Internet corporation--even one as sanctified and mythologized as Google.

Eric Schmidt To Newspapers: Don't BLAME Google, We Can Help

2009-12-03T09:02:24Z

With dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame. Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return. The facts, I believe, suggest otherwise.

Google Homepage Debuts Fancy New "Fade In" Feature

2009-12-03T08:56:49Z

It's been spotted in the wild before, but today Google is officially unveiling a new and minimalist version of the classic Google.com homepage.

There's literally not much to it, as it simply sports the Google logo and two search buttons: Google Search and I'm Feeling Lucky. But don't worry, everything you've come to expect from the homepage is still there, but the features are hidden until you move your mouse, at which point they fade in.

Noah Mallin: Where Should You Talk (and Listen) to an Independent? Online, of Course

2009-12-02T18:23:00Z

The last few election cycles, including the one just finished, have shown that self-described Independent voters have held the margin of victory in many of the high profile close races. Barack Obama won in '08 in part by successfully courting this group, as did Chris Christie in the New Jersey governor's race and Bob McDonnell in Virginia's gubernatorial contest.

I think we can assume that one of the reasons Independents decide not to affiliate with one of the two major parties in American electoral politics is because the standard positions that each party takes don't line up with where these voters stand personally.

One can be a social liberal and simultaneously a fiscal conservative for instance, and feel that neither party as a whole offers a consistent identity that encompasses your worldview. It may be fair to extrapolate from this that Independents are more likely to choose a candidate based on issues rather than party affiliation.

So why not reach Independents at a place where most people turn when they are seeking more information? That is, online, through search engines.

Before doing this, though, it helps to understand what the important issues are. Search and social media data can be leveraged and sifted to get a sense of what people are saying to each other online in local forums, on blogs, and in comments to news stories.

Once you understand which issues to concentrate on, you can actively engage Independent voters online. Localized paid search ads are a great way to do this. It's one thing to buy up your candidate's name as a keyword so that people searching for that name are led back to the website. Really clever campaigners buy up keywords such as "New Jersey property taxes" so undecided voters interested in learning each candidate's stance on a topic see a link to what you have to say front and center.

You can reinforce that paid search result by making sure your website is properly optimized, which allows the relevant section of your site (in this case, information on property taxes) to show up organically in search results next to that paid link.

So far so good, but don't forget social media.

Twitter posts and even Facebook status updates are increasingly becoming part of standard search engine results on sites like Google and Bing. They give Independents a chance to dig into information on a candidate in a more engaging space than a standard website. Also, it's unlikely (if not unprecedented) that voting is motivated by a single issue -- leading an Independent voter to a candidate's social profiles can help them see more issues that can sway them in favor of voting for (or to be fair, against) a given candidate.

Social media profiles on sites like Twitter and Facebook can help voters connect with a campaign by enabling them to ask questions and engage directly outside the confines of a planned event.

At the end of the day, a solid strategy will win these Independents over -- but smart online tactics are some of the most effective ways to inform and enact a strategy that's aimed at reaching folks in the process of making a decision. Done well, it can even turn fence sitters into fierce advocates.

Blaise Zerega: Google the New Power Utility?

2009-12-02T10:23:03Z

Could Google do for the electrical grid what it's done for the Internet?

"PG&E's greatest fear, and they won't say it publicly, is Google," says VentureBeat's Matt Marshall in his interview of Google's Ed Lu, who oversees the search giant's PowerMeter program. PG&E, of course, is one of the nation's largest utilities, serving 15 million people in central and northern California. Marshall spoke with Lu at the GreenBeat 2009 conference.

"We don't want to be a utility," Lu responds. "We see our strength is reaching lots of customers," and helping utilities provide information to their customers about energy usage.

Taken at face value, fair enough. Or as Marshall remarks, "That's a slick message," and recites how Google said the same thing before it released Android, it's mobile phone operating system.
With it, Google has certainly rocked the cell phone market and in the process become the interface to millions of wireless customers.

So, should PG&E be afraid?

Watch the full program at FORA.tv

Google And The New Digital Future

2009-12-02T07:26:05Z

Robert Darnton
The New York Review of Books

November 9 is one of those strange dates haunted by history. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, signaling the collapse of the Soviet empire. The Nazis organized Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938, beginning their all-out campaign against Jews. On November 9, 1923, Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch was crushed in Munich, and on November 9, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and Germany was declared a republic. The date especially hovers over the history of Germany, but it marks great events in other countries as well: the Meiji Restoration in Japan, November 9, 1867; Bonaparte's coup effectively ending the French Revolution, November 9, 1799; and the first sighting of land by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, November 9, 1620.

On November 9, 2009, in the district court for the Southern District of New York, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers were scheduled to file a settlement to resolve their suit against Google for alleged breach of copyright in its program to digitize millions of books from research libraries and to make them available, for a fee, online. Not comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall, you might say. True, but for several months, all eyes in the world of books--authors, publishers, librarians, and a great many readers--were trained on the court and its judge, Denny Chin, because this seemingly small-scale squabble over copyright looked likely to determine the digital future for all of us.

Google has by now digitized some ten million books. On what terms will it make those texts available to readers? That is the question before Judge Chin. If he construes the case narrowly, according to precedents in class-action suits, he could conclude that none of the parties had been slighted. That decision would remove all obstacles to Google's attempt to transform its digitizing of texts into the largest library and book-selling business the world has ever known. If Judge Chin were to take a broad view of the case, the settlement could be modified in ways that would protect the public against potential abuses of Google's monopolistic power.

That Google's enterprise (Google Book Search, or GBS) threatened to become an overweening monopoly became clear when the Department of Justice filed a memorandum with the court warning about the likelihood of a violation of antitrust legislation. More than four hundred other memorandums and amicus briefs also provided warnings about mounting opposition to GBS. In the face of this opposition, Google and the plaintiffs petitioned the court to delay a hearing that was scheduled for October 17 so that they could rework the settlement. Judge Chin set November 9 as the deadline when the new version of the settlement would be unveiled.

The great event turned out to be a dud, however. At the last minute, Google and the plaintiffs asked Judge Chin to grant another extension. He gave them four more days, so the witching hour finally took place not on November 9 but on a less auspicious date, Friday the 13th.

Why did the deadline look so monumental? The terms of the settlement will have a profound effect on the book industry for the foreseeable future. On the positive side, Google will make it possible for consumers to purchase access to millions of copyrighted books currently in print, and to read them on hand-held devices or computer screens, with payment going to authors and publishers as well as Google. Many millions more--books covered by copyright but out of print, at least seven million in all, including untold millions of "orphans" whose rightsholders have not been identified--will be available through subscriptions paid for by institutions such as universities. The database, along with books in the public domain that Google has already digitized, will constitute a gigantic digital library, and it will grow over time so that someday it could be larger than the Library of Congress (which now contains over 21 million catalogued books). By paying a moderate subscription fee, libraries, colleges, and educational institutions of all kinds could have instant access to a whole world of learning and literature.

But will the price be moderate? The negative arguments stress the danger that monopolies tend to charge monopoly prices. Equally important, they warn that Google's dominance of access to books will reinforce its power over access to other kinds of information, raising concerns about privacy (Google may be able to aggregate data about your reading, e-mail, consumption, housing, travel, employment, and many other activities). The same dominance also raises questions about both competition (the class-action character of the suit could make it impossible for another entrepreneur to digitize orphan works, because only Google will be protected from litigation by rightsholders) and commitment to the public good. As a commercial enterprise, Google's first duty is to provide a profit for its shareholders, and the settlement leaves no room for representation of libraries, readers, or the public in general.

An extensive argument about the pros and cons could turn Judge Chin's courtroom into a forum where the full range of literary questions would be dramatized by debate. No courtroom drama took place on November 13, because nothing happened other than the filing of the revised settlement (call it GBS 2.0 to distinguish it from the original version of the settlement, GBS 1.0). But the filing was important in itself, because it marked the denouement of years of hard bargaining over who would control a large stretch of the digital landscape that is just now coming into view.

To be sure, GBS 2.0 will certainly be challenged by groups and individuals who claim they were not fairly represented in the classes of authors and publishers. The case may take years to work its way through the courts. Meanwhile, Google will go on digitizing; and as the legal situation evolves, it may devise further revisions of the settlement (GBS 3.0, GBS 4.0, etc.). The public will have to study all the new versions of the settlement in order to stay informed about the rules of the game while the game is being played. Who ultimately wins is not simply a matter of competition among potential entrepreneurs but an issue of enormous importance to everyone who cares about books, even though the public is reduced to the role of spectator.

As the first step toward a resolution, the filing on November 13 suggested just how far Google is willing to go in modifying the original settlement. Google's spokesman hailed the revised version as providing all the benefits and none of the defects that one could expect. According to Dan Clancy, Google Books engineering director,

Google is still very excited about this agreement.... We look forward to continuing to work with rightsholders from around the world to fulfill our longstanding mission of increasing access to all the world's books.

But the arguments in favor of the reworked settlement came from Google and the plaintiffs who will become its collaborators if their deal is approved. To get a sense of the counterarguments, one can survey the memorandums and amicus briefs that were filed with the court before November 9.[*] The protests that came from Europe are the most revealing. Although they concentrate on issues of special importance to foreigners--above all, the incompatibility of American class-action suits with protection for copyright holders who are not Americans--they show how the settlement was seen from a distant perspective.

The governments of France and Germany sent memorandums urging the court to reject the settlement "in its entirety" or at least insofar as it applied to their own citizens. Far from seeing any potential public good in it, they condemned it for creating an "unchecked, concentrated power" over the digitization of a vast amount of literature (this according to the French memorandum) and for doing so (according to the Germans) by a "commercially driven" agreement negotiated "in secrecy...behind closed doors by three interested parties, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google, Inc."

In contrast to the commercial character of Google's enterprise, both governments stressed the higher values represented by their national literatures. The French began their memorandum by invoking Pascal, Descartes, Molière, Racine, and other writers through Camus and Sartre, while the Germans summoned up the line that led from Goethe and Schiller to Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass. Each country cited the number of its Nobel Prize winners in literature (France sixteen, Germany twelve), and each buttressed its case by other evidence of high-mindedness. The Germans insisted on Gutenberg and his contribution to "the spread of science and culture." The French cited the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 in order to uphold the principle of "free access to information" threatened by Google's "de facto monopoly."

It is an odd spectacle: foreign governments defending a European notion of culture against the capitalistic inroads of an American company, and submitting their case to Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District Court of New York. What Judge Chin, who grew up in Hell's Kitchen in a family of poor Chinese immigrants (and won a scholarship to Princeton University) made of it all is difficult to say. He did not tip his hand on November 13, nor did he say when a hearing would take place.

In playing the cultural card, the French emphasized the unique character of the book, "a product unlike other products"--its power to capture creativity, to enrich civilization, and to promote diversity, which, they claimed, would be compromised by Google's commitment to commercialization. The Germans spoke in the name of "the land of poets and thinkers," but they laid most stress on the right of privacy, which, they argued, Google could threaten by keeping data on who reads what. Both governments then listed a series of subsidiary arguments, which were nearly the same, word for word--unsurprisingly, as they engaged the same legal counsel:

The settlement gives Google a virtual monopoly over orphan works, even though it has no claim to their copyrights.

Its opt-out provision, which means that authors will be deemed to have accepted the settlement unless they notify Google to the contrary, violates the rights inherent in authorship.

It contains a most-favored- nation clause--i.e., a provision that prevents a potential competitor from obtaining better terms than Google in any new commercial uses of the digitized books. The terms of such future enterprises will be determined by a Books Rights Registry composed exclusively of representatives of the authors and publishers. The Registry will keep track of copyrights and cooperate with Google in setting prices.

It gives Google the power to censor its database by excluding up to 15 percent of the digitized works.

Its guidelines for pricing will promote Google's commercial interests, not the good of the public, through the use of algorithms created by Google according to Google's secret methods.

It favors secrecy in general, hiding audit procedures, preventing the public from attending meetings in which Google and the Registry will discuss library matters, and even requiring Google, the authors, and publishers to destroy all documents relevant to their agreement on the settlement.

Above all, the French and Germans condemned the settlement for sanctioning the "uncontrolled, autocratic concentration of power in a single corporate entity," which threatened the "free exchange of ideas through literature." To drive the point home, they both noted that Google has taken in more revenue than many countries--$22 billion in 2008.

The same points were made in a hearing before the European Commission on September 7 by the three most important international library associations: the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associates (EBLIDA), and the Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche (LIBER). In nearly identical testimony, all three stressed the danger that "a large proportion of the world's heritage of books in digital format will be under the control of a single corporate entity."

It was Google's sheer power that gave them pause. They summoned up the prospect of a digital library of 30 million books that would cost $750 million, and they concluded that Google would exercise something close to hegemony in the book world. Therefore, they appealed to the European Commission to defend the interests of the public by preventing Google from abusing its power.

Some of these associations submitted similar statements to the New York court. So did hundreds of other groups and individuals. After reading through them, one has the impression of a sense of alarm gathering force and rising to the surface of a collective consciousness. As November 9 approached, it did indeed promise to be a day of destiny, when we would begin to see into our digital future and to face the forces that might determine it.

Where was the Department of Justice in the pre-November debate? It, too, submitted a memorandum for the court's consideration. After months of investigating potential violations of antitrust law, the DOJ pointed to two serious difficulties: the possibility of horizontal agreements among authors and publishers to restrict price competition and the further restriction of competition by Google's de facto exclusive rights to the digital distribution of orphan works. Competitors would be denied access to millions of orphans, the memorandum argued, because they would not enjoy the immunity from suits for copyright infringement that the settlement reserves to Google. Moreover, the settlement's equivalent of a most-favored-nation clause would prevent all competitors from obtaining better terms than Google's even if they could put together an attractive database. Instead of expatiating in the European manner on the danger to the world's literary heritage, the DOJ warned about something concrete: the "risk of market foreclosure."

What to do? Far from sounding hostile to Google Book Search, the DOJ acknowledged its potential to promote the public good and announced, "The United States does not want the opportunity or momentum to be lost." The memorandum could therefore be read as a prescription for a way to save the settlement. It concentrated on the most hotly debated provisions--those concerning the approximately seven million out-of-print but in-copyright books, especially orphans--and it suggested the following changes:

Require rightsholders of out-of-print books to participate in the settlement by opting in instead of operating from the assumption that they had agreed to participate unless they opted out. The shift to an opt-out default would remove Google's control of books whose rightsholders cannot be identified or do not come forward.

Do not distribute the profits from the sale of orphan books to the parties of the settlement (Google and the authors and publishers) but rather use the money to fund a thorough search for the unknown rightsholders, and extend the search for a long period of time.

Appoint guardians to protect the interests of orphan rightsholders by serving on the registry.

Find some mechanism by which potential competitors to Google could gain access to orphan works without exposure to suits for infringement of copyright. Presumably this would require legislation by Congress.

Prevent Google from using out-of-print works in new commercial products without the owner's permission.

The DOJ said it would continue to investigate the potential violation of antitrust laws, and it concluded with an unambiguous imperative: "This Court should reject the Proposed Settlement in its current form...." But its recommendations for an improved settlement did not go far--not nearly as far as those suggested by the governments of France and Germany and many other critics. The DOJ said nothing about the need for monitoring prices, protecting privacy, preventing censorship, providing representation of the public on the registry, and requiring full disclosure of Google's secret data. If the DOJ encouraged Judge Chin to take a broad view of the settlement, it did not open the door wide.

The revised settlement, or GBS 2.0, released on November 13, reads as if Google and the plaintiffs took most of their cues from the DOJ's memorandum. In a clear concession to the DOJ's criticisms, GBS 2.0 provides that the Registry will include a court-appointed guardian to represent the rightsholders of unclaimed books. But it does not switch to an opt-out provision for such rightsholders--that is, according to GBS 2.0, any owner of a copyright of an out-of-print book would be deemed to accept the settlement unless he or she rejected it. Because millions of books, primarily orphans, fall into this category where the rightsholders are difficult to identify, Google alone would enjoy immunity from prosecution by any rightsholders who might turn up--and the exposure to litigation, which could easily reach $150,000 per title, would be enough to prevent any competitor from entering the field. Instead of providing a solution to the problem of orphan works, GBS 2.0 leaves Google in command of their commercialization, pending eventual legislation by Congress.

As to revenue from the sale of orphan books, GBS 2.0 complies with the DOJ's insistence that the money not go to Google and the plaintiffs. Instead it will be spent in efforts to search for the unidentified rightsholders; and after being held for ten years, the funds will be distributed to charities determined by court order.

GBS 2.0 also follows the DOJ's recommendation to abandon the most-favored-nation clause. Google's competitors would be able to license out-of-print books in retail enterprises --that is, in selling individual works to consumers--although Google would maintain exclusive control of the institutional subscriptions to its gigantic database.

How the price of those subscriptions will be set remains unclear. GBS 2.0 has some language explaining the way its pricing algorithm will work, but it contains no effective mechanism to prevent price gouging, no provision for an antitrust consent decree that would empower a public authority to monitor prices, and no way to protect the public from excessive pricing should Google be taken over in the future by rapacious speculators.

GBS 2.0 does not therefore differ in essentials from GBS 1.0. It largely ignores the objections of foreign governments, except in one crucial respect: it partly meets the objections by narrowing the scope of GBS to books published in the United States and to countries with similar legal systems--that is, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Google will not display books published in countries like France and Germany, and it will give them representation on the Registry to protect their interests. Just what proportion of unclaimed works will now be excluded from the settlement by this concession remains to be clarified.

Will these concessions be enough to mollify Google's critics outside the Department of Justice who are not parties to the settlement? Probably not, judging from a statement issued on November 13 by the Open Book Alliance, whose members include Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo:

By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP [Association of American Publishers], and the AG [Authors Guild] are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution; usurp Congress's role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class action process.

What then is the outlook for the future? No one can predict the fate of the settlement as it bounces from court to court; but if the public good should be taken into consideration, one can imagine two general solutions to the problems posed by GBS, one maximal, one minimal.

The most ambitious solution would transform Google's digital database into a truly public library. That, of course, would require an act of Congress, one that would make a decisive break with the American habit of determining public issues by private lawsuit. The legislation would have to settle ancillary problems--how to adjust copyright, deal with orphan books, and compensate Google for its investment in digitizing--but it would have the advantage of clearing up a messy legal landscape and of giving the American people what they deserve: a national digital library equal to the needs of the twenty-first century. But it is not clear how Google would react to such a buyout.

If state intervention is deemed to go too far against the American grain, a minimal solution could be devised for the private sector. Congress would have to intervene with legislation to protect the digitization of orphan works from lawsuits, but it would not need to appropriate funds. Instead, funding could come from a coalition of foundations. The digitizing, open-access distribution, and preservation of orphan works could be done by a nonprofit organization such as the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that was built as a digital library of texts, images, and archived Web pages. In order to avoid conflict with interests in the current commercial market, the database would include only books in the public domain and orphan works. Its time span would increase as copyrights expired, and it could include an opt-in provision for rightsholders of books that are in copyright but out of print.

The work need not be done in haste. At the rate of a million books a year, we would have a great library, free and accessible to everyone, within a decade. And the job would be done right, with none of the missing pages, botched images, faulty editions, omitted artwork, censoring, and misconceived cataloging that mar Google's enterprise. Bibliographers--who appear to play little or no part in Google's enterprise--would direct operations along with computer engineers. Librarians would cooperate with both in order to assure the preservation of the books, another weak point in GBS, because Google is not committed to maintaining its corpus, and digitized texts easily degrade or become inaccessible.

This digitizing process could be subsidized as part of the Obama administration's economic stimulus, and the overall cost, spread out over ten to twenty years, would be manageable, perhaps $750 million in all. Meanwhile, Google and anyone else would be free to exploit the commercial sector. The national digital library could be composed from the holdings of the Library of Congress alone or, failing that, from research libraries that have not opened all their collections to Google.

Perhaps other solutions could be devised. If the court did not resolve the Google Book Search problem on November 13, at least it had the potential to concentrate minds and stimulate public debate. We are agreed that something must be done to improve the nation's health. Why not do something to enrich its culture?

--November 18, 2009

[*]The texts of the documents can be consulted at dockets.justia.com/docket/court-nysdce/case_no-1:2005cv08136/case_id-273913.

Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard. "The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future" was published in October and "The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon" will be published in December. (December 2009)

Read more at The New York Review of Books.

Google's 'First Click Free' Will Allow Newspapers To Limit Access To Stories

2009-12-01T21:29:42Z

LONDON — In a move that could help improve relations between Google Inc. and the media industry, the Internet search company is offering publishers a way to build more solid "pay walls" around their online stories while still appearing in search results.

In an official blog post Tuesday, Google said it will let publishers limit the number of restricted articles that readers can see for free through its search engine.

Google Wants To Stream TV On YouTube, For A Fee, Sources Say

2009-12-01T09:14:51Z

YouTube, which is already trying out the movie rental business, wants to get into TV, too.

Google's video site has been trying to convince the TV industry to let it stream individual shows for a fee, multiple sources tell me.

Google, Facebook, Twitter Go RED For World AIDS Day (PHOTOS)

2009-12-01T07:56:06Z

In an effort to raise awareness for World AIDS Day, which takes place annually December 1, Google, Twitter, and Facebook have all added special features to their sites and homepages.

Google has posted a red AIDS ribbon below the search bar on its homepage that directs users to a list of resources where people can "learn", "act", and "give" to help and raise awareness for people living with HIV/AIDS. (See screenshot below)

The World AIDS Day resources featured by Google can be seen here.

Twitter has revamped the sign-in screen of its homepage with a red color scheme and a banner that reads,

1 DEC is World AIDS day. Help turn Twitter (RED)™. Follow @JoinRED to find out how.

According to the Guardian, the hashtags #red or #laceupsavelives will also turn red when Tweeted out by Twitter users -- helping to "turn Twitter (RED)" for World AIDS Day.

Facebook is also campaigning to raise awareness for World AIDS Day working in conjunction with (RED). The site is asking its users to "share", "show", and "shop."

Facebook's "JoinRED" campaign encourages people on Facebook to "share" a video and fact about AIDS ("It costs around 40 cents a day for the 2 pills that can help keep a person living with HIV in Africa alive") as well as to "show" their support by uploading a (RED) profile picture to their Facebook account. (See screenshot below)

What are you doing for World AIDS Day? Tell us in the comments section below!

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Jose Antonio Vargas: Why Twitter is the Most Popular Word of 2009

2009-11-30T14:02:07Z

Of course Twitter is the most popular English word of the year.

Yesterday, the Global Language Monitor declared the San Francisco-based micro-blogging site as the top English word of 2009. In a decade marked by the growth of most everything Internet-related, this marked the first time a Web company has earned that distinction. MySpace (founded in 2003), Facebook (in 2004) and YouTube (2005) never made that spot in their early years.

But Twitter's achievement also underlines a sobering reality -- one that President Obama, a BlackBerry addict, hinted at in a town hall meeting in Shanghai two weeks ago. Asked via the Internet if the Chinese should be able to use Twitter freely, Obama responded: "Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone."

For all the buzz (our "first Twitter Christmas," the New York Times wrote Friday, noting how retailers like Best Buy use the site); all the magazine covers ("How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live," read a headline in June's Time magazine); all its undeniable impact in all aspects of life, from politics to entertainment (remember country-pop princess Taylor Swift thanking her Twitter followers during her speech at this year's MTV Video Music Awards?), Twitter is not mainstream.

Not mainstream in terms of size; since this summer, there's been report after report that Twitter's membership has peaked, not anywhere near the 300-million strong membership of Facebook.

Not mainstream in terms of usage; though many live, swear and exist through Twitter's 140 character limit, Twitter's retention rate, as been widely reported, is somewhere around 40 percent. (A caveat: that doesn't take into account people who use Twitter through third-party applications and mobile phones.)

Not mainstream in terms of omnipresence and ubiquity; Twitter ain't Google.

In other words, Twitter is not for everyone -- not yet, at least. Many people are confused by it. (If I had a dime for every time a friend or a relative who's not glued in front of his/her computer all day said to me, "I still don't get this Twitter thing!"). Others don't see how it relates to their everyday lives. ("So why do I need this again?") Broadly speaking, and with many exceptions, Twitter is still largely the province of the world's digital elites and early adopters, who from the streets of Tehran to the fragmented Republican Party are getting their message out, whatever that message may be, unfiltered, unedited, be it photos, videos, opinion or just plain news. And the message will get out. And the message will inevitably spread. It's no coincidence, by the way, that the top English words of the past few years, as surveyed by Global Language Monitor, are news-related. Last year, the top word was "change," in reference to Obama's improbable and winning campaign. Three years before that, in 2005, it was "refugee," in reference to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. In 2000, it was "chad" -- as in the hanging chads of Florida, which played a central role in the tight race between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

Twitter, after all, is about having a voice. Here in the U.S., it may mean tweeting about this or that party. Abroad, in authoritarian regimes such as Iran, it means tweeting about the fight for democracy.

"Twitter has gone in the way of YouTube. At first, people thought YouTube was silly and weird; they didn't know how to YouTube and what a YouTube channel was. Now YouTube is synonymous, the industry standard, for online video -- for everyday people to watch, upload and share videos," Scott Goodstein, the text messaging expert who ran Obama's social networking presence during the campaign, told me. "Twitter is going through the same process. Twitter has become synonymous with quick, short opinion and perspective -- coming from anyone, going everywhere."

The Web is flat. And in a world made smaller by the Internet and new technologies, Twitter forces us to become each other's witnesses, one tweet at a time.

That's why Twitter, only three years old, is the most popular English word of 2009.

Google Phone "Is A Certainty," Source Claims

2009-11-30T10:46:44Z

According to a trusted source who's seen it with their own eyes, the Google Phone "is a certainty."

And by "Google Phone" we don't simply mean another Android handset. We're talking about Google-branded hardware running a version of Android we haven't yet seen.

Why Newspapers Won't Get Rich Shunning Google

2009-11-30T08:31:59Z

SAN FRANCISCO — There's an intriguing idea floating around the media: Microsoft Corp. wants to undercut Google so badly in Internet search that it might pay newspapers to withhold their content from Google.

Just don't count on that turning into a lucrative plan for newspapers.

Obama Jobs Summit Will Include Business Leaders: Google, Disney CEOs To Attend

2009-11-30T00:48:59Z

The invitations went out just before Thanksgiving, but by the end of the holiday weekend the White House has confirmed that President Obama's jobs summit on Thursday will include about 130 business leaders, union chiefs, academics, mayors and representatives of nonprofit groups.

Google To Digitize Iraq Museum Artifacts

2009-11-24T08:28:15Z

Google is documenting Iraq's national museum and will post photographs of its ancient treasures on the Internet early next year, Google chief Eric Schmidt announced Tuesday.

Jonathan Steinsapir: An Epic Internet Copyright Battle on the Horizon? Microsoft and News Corp. vs. Google, Maybe

2009-11-23T15:34:53Z

The internet is just beginning to buzz today regarding news that Microsoft has reportedly approached Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to discuss a deal whereby News Corp. would "delist" its websites from Google (and, most likely, other search engines that are not using Microsoft's Bing search engine) in exchange for cash from Microsoft.

The Financial Times describes this as "offer[ing] a ray of light to the newspaper industry." The popular liberal blogger Atrios disagrees, and cuts to the heart of the story with the following two sentences : "Basically Microsoft's gonna pay people for the sole right to index their content. I'm guessing that aside from being a waste of money, I'm pretty sure 'I won't index you if you ask me politely not to' is more of a courtesy than something arising out of genuine copyright claim fears." As Atrios succinctly notes, there are basically two issues here: (1) Would such a deal be wise from a business perspective? and (2) Could Microsoft and News Corp. legally enforce such a deal against Google? I leave it to others more qualified than I to comment on the business wisdom of such a deal. Although Atrios proves that you don't need to be an intellectual property lawyer to spot and comment on the copyright issues here, it probably won't hurt to hear such a lawyer's initial thoughts on some of the legal issues raised. So, here goes . . .

In a nutshell, Google and other modern search engines work like this - they constantly "crawl" through websites and copy all the text from those sites onto their own servers. Then, when you enter search terms into Google, Google searches its own servers, which contain copies of almost all public websites. Google then returns a list of results pointing you to certain websites with snippets of relevant copied portions of those websites. And that's the issue: Google is copying other people's content. Copyright law forbids the unauthorized copying of others' content (of course, there are some nuances here as to what type of "content" is protected by copyright law - i.e., it must be "original" content - but set those nuances aside because they are not directly relevant to the issue here). So if News Corp. politely asks Google to stop copying its content, and Google ignores the request, Google will be engaging in the unauthorized copying of News Corp.'s content. And that folks is unquestionably a prima facie case of copyright infringement.

Again, however, you don't need to be an intellectual property lawyer to know that we are not at the end of the analysis. You see, there is this little doctrine in copyright law called "fair use." That doctrine provides that the copying of content for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research is "fair" and is not infringement. The fair use analysis is case-specific and notoriously hard to predict - courts generally consider several factors in determining whether there is a fair use, including the purpose and character of the work, the amount of use, and the effect upon the market for the copyrighted work. So, would Google's copying be a fair use? On that question, there is no clear answer. And a lot of lawyers may get rich because of it.

Based on a line of cases where appellate courts have held that search engines' copying of images for indexing and search purposes is fair use , I would very tentatively predict that Google would come out on top if this issue actually gets litigated. But if this gets litigated, expect a big-time battle over every issue. For example, one of the most important issues will be who files a lawsuit first? Why does that matter? Because the party that files first generally gets to pick where they file, i.e., in which federal district court. And the fair use cases I have in mind are not from the Supreme Court; they are from the Ninth Circuit - the intermediate federal appeals court on the West Coast. Thus, those cases are only binding on the courts within the Ninth Circuit. Thus, Microsoft and News Corp. will want to file outside of the Ninth Circuit (in New York, for example, where News Corp. is headquartered). So, the first thing we may expect in any legal battle will be what lawyers call a "race to the courthouse" where Google will try to file first in the Ninth Circuit. Even if the case gets decided in the Ninth Circuit, however, Microsoft and News Corp. will still have some good arguments to get around the cases I have in mind. And even if they lose in the trial court and then in the Ninth Circuit, don't expect them to give up. There is still the Supreme Court, and given the importance of these issues, I would expect that the Justices would likely give strong consideration to taking the case.

In short, if Microsoft and News Corp. go forward with a deal whereby News Corp. demands that Google stop indexing its websites, don't be surprised if it leads to one of the most important copyright lawsuits in history. And don't be surprised if the ultimate outcome of such a lawsuit shapes the future of internet search.