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20 March 2007
Google gets the Euro-evangelism bug
Posted by Paul Miller at March 20, 2007 11:17 AM
My colleague Lee Cox draws my attention to a piece in this morning's Bookseller briefing, citing a longer piece in today's Financial Times. Reading both, I'd hopefully have got there in the end, but thanks to Lee for short-circuiting the process!
To quote Andy Bounds and Richard Waters' piece in the FT,
“Google is seeking to hire a network of lobbyists in capitals across Europe as it tries to shape debate over pressing internet policy issues, from copyright to online privacy.
Google this month advertised for recruits in at least 10 capitals with a passion for 'the expansion of a free and open internet'.”
Now there's a good idea! The AAP and their litigious friends will doubtless bemoan this opportunity for further eroding their right to fleece everyone in sight, blah, blah, blah, but to my mind Google's evangelism effort in this space is to be welcomed. Yes, they're a commercial organisation. Yes, of course they want to generate a profit. Yes, of course we'd be completely insane to 'give' everything to any one organisation; Google, Microsoft, or anyone else.
But as an exercise in bringing the complex set of interrelated issues to policy makers' attention? As an opportunity to challenge some of the frankly insane interpretations of copyright and ownership with which we're meant to live, it's a good thing. Tied into broader discussions of 'Open Data', and linked to noises from Google such as Eric Schmidt's statement to last year's Web 2.0 Summit, I have no problem with them being near the front of the charge in this area.
Open Data ('open' needn't always mean 'free'), available to Google, Talis, Microsoft, Amazon, and whoever else has the wherewithal to aggregate, orchestrate and add value? It's a great opportunity. Google can build businesses that attempt to monetise the aggregate. So can others. Google stands to gain from opening access to data, as it gives them so much more to work with. It's also a huge risk for them (and others), as they have to innovate so much harder, and make the data do so much more, in order to differentiate their own offering from that of anyone else accessing the same pool.
I very much look forward to seeing where this one goes, and to engaging with Google's evangelising in this space.
Technorati Tags: Bookseller, Financial Times, Google, Government, open data, FT, Talis
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