14 DAY TRIAL // It's lonely at the top, something that is becoming clearer and clearer for Google. It's being attacked from all sides, government regulators and private companies alike, sometimes over real issues, but most of the time over what amounts to jealousy of Google's increasingly successful ventures. In the latest case, three German companies and organizations have banded together and filed complaints with the Federal Cartel Office in the country.
The first complaint comes from The Federation of Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) and Association of German Magazine Publishers (VDZ) and is a fairly typical one at this point, the publishers feel robbed out of revenue by Google who displays copyrighted snippets of text and sends readers to their online news outlets. They don't mind the last part that much, but would rather Google also pay for the privilege of promoting their content. This type of arguments have had a checkered history in Europe, Google has lost a similar case in Belgium a couple of years ago over Google News.
The second one comes from a shopping and customer review site Ciao, incidentally owned by Microsoft, which basically wants out of an advertising contract it signed with Google before it was bought by the Redmont-based software giant. The company claims that the terms of the contract are overtly restrictive and that AdSense is not transparent enough over revenues.
The third complaint is even better, Euro-Cities, an online mapping company which is upset because Google offers Google Maps, specifically the embeddable widgets, for free. This interferes with the company's own business which is selling a similar service.
What does all this mean for Google? Well, the first point we've seen over and over again and the arguments have been laid out before. If publishers want out, Google provides them with easy means to do so. This is what it all boils down to. The next two complaints are even less likely to stick, but stranger things have happened when government regulators get involved, especially in Europe and especially when concerning a US company.