Google Bug On Document Sharing Highlights Communication Problems

from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

Hopefully this is just a big mistake, but Slashdot points us to a bunch of Google Docs users complaining that Google is blocking them from sharing their documents claiming "inappropriate content," even in cases where the content is clearly fine, such as college class notes and homework assignments. Even assuming this is just some sort of bug, the bigger issue seems to be Google's lack of response, despite the issue cropping up weeks ago. This charge has been raised about Google in the past, and it's only going to become more important. As more and more people rely on Google for services, the company is going to need to improve its handling of customer service issues and communication.

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Shooting Victim Sues Google Over Search Results On His Name

from the good-luck-with-that dept

sinsi alerts us to a bizarre lawsuit in Australia where shooting victim Michael Trkulja is suing Google, claiming the search engine has some liability for his getting shot. The reasoning? Apparently searches on his name would take you to pages suggesting that Trkulja was involved in organized crime operations. It doesn't appear that he has any other info linking his shooting to this particular webpage or to the fact that the shooter may have done a Google search. It also does not appear (at least from the article here) that the guy is blaming the website in question -- just Google for leading people to it. Not sure what sorts of laws there are in Australia concerning such liability, but it's hard to think of a scenario under which this lawsuit should make sense under any legal system.

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Australian Operator Optus Deliberately Blocking Android Paid Apps

from the it-wants-a-cut,-apparently dept

A few folks have sent in the news that Australian mobile operator Optus appears to be completely blocking access to paid apps for owners of Android phones. Apparently people have been complaining about this for a while, and Optus has been mostly silent on the matter, only stating:

"Optus is currently working with Google to provide an Android application store to our customers, and we are optimistic it will be available soon."

Except, of course, it shouldn't require any permission from Optus at all -- which is leading to reasoned speculation that Optus is blocking access to paid apps in the Android app store because Optus wants a cut of the revenue. This is typical of mobile carriers who keep wanting to believe that they're the tollbooth everyone needs to pay. Instead, the more likely result is just to drive mobile phone users to other carriers.

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If You're Looking For The Open Source Business Model, You're Looking For The Wrong Thing

from the that's-backwards dept

Every so often we see a similar article to the one penned recently by Ashlee Vance in the NY Times, bemoaning the lack of "open source business model" success stories. Now, Vance is a top notch reporter and does great work for the NY Times (as he did for The Register before), but these kinds of articles seem to miss the point. They go looking for "open source" company success stories, and find that most open source software companies don't end up doing very well, and the few that do okay end up selling out to other companies (MySQL, XenSource, SpringSource) and conclude that, outside of perhaps RedHat, "open source" isn't a very good business. But that misses the point. Open source software, by itself, shouldn't be much of a business. Just as music isn't much of a business by itself, but it can be a huge component of a larger business, open source software is part of what helps many other businesses.

So, while Vance dismisses the fact that companies like Google and IBM rely tremendously on using open source software to be the foundation of their multi-billion dollar businesses, it's time to recognize that those are open source business models. Just as we talk about how the new music ecosystem involves using music to make other things much more valuable, the "open source business model" is using open source software to make other things much more valuable. The companies that haven't gotten very far trying to sell open source software are in that spot because they don't understand open source business models themselves, and seem to think that the focus should remain on selling software, rather than using the software to make other things more valuable. While Vance dismisses companies like Google and IBM using open source software as "pawns," it's time to recognize that that is the most reasonable way to build a business on open source work. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's helping build tremendous businesses that have a huge impact on the world economy.

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Italian Prosecutors Assume Google Execs Read All YouTube Comments; Demands Jailtime Over Video

from the common-sense-failure dept

We've been absolutely stunned by the Italian attempt to prosecute Google execs over a YouTube video. If you don't recall the story, apparently some schoolboys taunted a disabled boy by throwing a tissue box at him. They filmed the entire ordeal and posted it to YouTube. Because of the video, the kids in the video were actually held liable for the taunting. It actually helped bring those kids to justice. Meanwhile, Google took down the video as soon as they were alerted to it by the authorities (within a couple hours of finding out about it). But Italian prosecutors insist not only that Google should have blocked the video entirely, but the fact that they left it up means that its execs are guilty of criminal violations and deserve jailtime.

In pressing the case forward, prosecutors are claiming that Google must have known about the nature of the video because there were comments on the YouTube video expressing disgust over the video. It's as if they believe that Google execs read all the comments posted to YouTube and use those to pick and choose which videos should stay up and which should be taken down.

In the meantime, I'm still wondering why Italian prosecutors are not trying to push the tissue manufacturer in jail as well, as I would argue that those who made the package of tissues thrown at the boy are at least as, if not more, responsible for the actions of those kids as Google.

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If Google Visitors Are Worthless, It's Only Because Newspaper Execs Don't Know What They're Doing

from the turning-away-visitors? dept

Once again, Danny Sullivan is ripping to shreds the arguments being made by newspaper execs who are talking about how Google is a "parasite" on their content, despite sending tons of traffic. In this episode, Danny looks at the silly claim that visitors from Google are worthless, by comparing the situation to a regular shopfront and how they handle browsers vs. requiring a fee to get inside in the first place. He also goes on to look at how the Wall Street Journal (to which he is a subscriber) tries to monetize him online, and the only clear conclusion is that if News Corp. execs think that traffic from Google is worthless, it's only because they're making it worthless by doing an incredibly poor job capitalizing on all that free traffic.

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Google Blocking Set Top Boxes From Showing YouTube Unless They Pay Up?

from the evil-is-as-evil-does dept

I'm wondering if there's more to this, because it seems rather "un-Google-like." The makers of a set top box that can display internet content are complaining that Google is blocking them from displaying YouTube content, unless they agree to "partner" and commit to buying lots of ads (the amount is in dispute). If this sounds quite a bit like the ongoing battle between Hulu and Boxee, you might be right. However, in that case, at least you could sort of understand the (misguided) thinking behind it, since Hulu is owned by the colossally short-sighted content companies. But what's Google's excuse? If all these set top boxes are really doing is accessing free internet content and formatting it better for a TV, why stop it? They're really no different than accessing content via a computer and a browser -- it's just that the "computer" is a set top box and the "browser" is formatted for a television. That shouldn't require a special agreement, or any sort of ad buy commitment. Update: Received a confused and angry email from YouTube PR linking us to the very Wired article we linked to and demanding we add their PR statement (which is already in the Wired article). However, it does not actually answer the questions raised or change the point of this post. The fact that YouTube restricts set tops from accessing the content still does not make sense.

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If Google's Book Scanning Violates Copyright Law, What About The AP's Book Scanning?

from the hard-to-see-the-difference dept

Danny Sullivan does a great job calling out the hypocrisy of the Associated Press yet again. The organization, which has taken a very maximalist position on copyright, where fair use gets mostly ignored, apparently had no problem scanning Sarah Palin's entire book into a computer so that reporters could search it. Of course, this is no different than what Google is doing with its book scanning program (which, again, I still believe is a clear case of fair use). Yet, since the AP seems to take such a limited view on fair use (and has a habit of accusing Google of "stealing" content), it's amusing that it's now trying to defend its actions by claiming that it was legal because it was for the sake of journalism, and the scan wasn't for public consumption. Except, of course, Google's book scanning isn't for "public consumption" of the entire work either, but so people can do a search to find the relevant tidbit of info within the book. The AP's statement on the matter is laughable:

"The book, purchased several days ahead of its on-sale date by the AP, was scanned after the first spot stories moved on the wire from New York so that staffers in bureaus in Washington and Alaska with knowledge of various parts of Gov. Palin's life and political career could read those relevant sections the next day."

Yes, you can understand why they did it, and even why it seems reasonable. But that doesn't change the fact that it appears the AP made an unauthorized copy of the book, in violation of its own interpretation of copyright law. Funny how the law seems oh so different when it limits what you can do, than when it's about limiting what your competitors can do...

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Would Top Sites Really Opt-Out Of Google Based On A Microsoft Bribe?

from the doubtful dept

Every so often, internet pontificators try to come up with ways to "kill Google." It's a silly game, but in an oddly timed move, three people (who have all put forth "how to kill Google" ideas in the past) all suddenly published similar ideas, yet again. Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban and Tom Foremski all posted similar ideas about how certain sites (such as the top sites in the top search results) could all choose to opt-out of Google and, say, join another search engine like Bing. It's one of those ideas that sounds good for about 5 seconds. And then you actually think about it. First, the numbers being tossed around concerning how much it would cost, say, Microsoft, to convince most of these sites to opt-out of their number one driver of traffic is significantly higher than what's being mentioned in these articles. Many of these sites rely on Google traffic to make a ton of money, and they're not going to throw that away easily. At least in Calacanis' plan he suggests Microsoft offer "50% more than they make in Google referrals" which certainly beats Cuban's idea that many sites would opt-out of Google for $1,000.

Here's the thing, though. Most of those sites worked hard to get to the top of Google for a very good reason: they understand the value of being easily findable. As such, they also recognize that it makes little sense to make themselves less findable at almost any price. Getting anyone to opt-out first (other than suicidal sites like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) is going to be nearly impossible. Who would want to risk that? Because the instant they opt-out, someone else would take their place. Quickly. And decisively.

There's value in being found these days, and to be found you need to be easily findable from anywhere if someone's looking for you. Not only would traffic decrease, but so would basic reputation. Even if Microsoft pays you a ton to drop out of Google, people are going to search for your business in Google and when they can't find it, they're not going to care how much Microsoft paid, they're going to think you're a small-time nobody. The best strategy these days, as most web site operators know, is to be as widely available as possible. Opt-ing out of Google because someone pays you some money is a lot more costly than just the lack of traffic.

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Jenzabar Finds 'Expert Witness' Who Will Claim Google Relies On Metatags, Despite Google Saying It Does Not

from the good-luck-there dept

It's been widely known for years that Google does not use metatag description comments in ranking its search results. Indeed, this simple fact is part of what made Google more reliable than other search engines, since many website owners used fake metatags to "optimize" their results in search engines. While this was quite obvious for many years, Google had never publicly admitted it (it doesn't like to talk about its algorithm) until just a few months ago. Still, the company was just confirming exactly what was widely known for the better part of a decade or so.

And yet, for years, people would bring trademark infringement lawsuits, insisting that metatags represent some sort of trademark violation. In one recent case, that we've discussed, the CEO of software company Jenzabar, Ling Chai, has sued the makers of a documentary about the Tiananmen Square uprising. Chai had been involved in the uprising and doesn't like how the filmmakers portrayed her role. The filmmakers, on their website, mention that Chai works for Jenzabar, and included the word "Jenzabar" in the metatags, which Jenzabar insists violates its trademarks.

The documentary makers brought on Public Citizen lawyer Paul Alan Levy, who noted in a blog post the simple fact that even Google says it does not rely on metatags, and in response, Jenzabar tried to block his being brought into the case, by saying that Levy's pointing to the Google blog post was hearsay.

Now, the company has gone even further. It's found an "expert witness" who will claim that metatags do, in fact, influence Google results, even as the company itself insists they don't. The guy in question, Frank Farance, claims in his affidavit that "metatags are used by every Web search engine to determine search results and rankings." It's not clear how he has expertise in this particular realm or how he knows that Google uses metatags when pretty much everyone in the space has known for years it does not and Google itself has publicly denied using metatags to rank results.

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New Google Book Settlement Tries To Appease Worries

from the doesn't-really-change-much dept

Late (very late) Friday, Google and groups representing publishers and authors squeaked in just under the deadline and put forth a revised Book Scanning settlement agreement, designed to address at least some of the concerns and complaints raised by people over the last one. If you want a good breakdown over the changes, check out Danny Sullivan's analysis or James Grimmelmann's. Not surprisingly, the Open Book Alliance is not happy, but seeing as it's a bunch of Google competitors, they were never going to be happy in the first place (and you know that press release was probably 95% written before the actual new terms were released).

In my mind, the biggest news is the new restrictions on countries from which it will scan books. From now on, the book scanning project will only scan books that have registered copyrights in the US, UK, Australia or Canada. This was mainly to address ridiculous concerns by some in Europe that this project -- to help make all books more accessible -- was somehow a threat to European culture. I was in Europe on Friday (well, Saturday there) when the announcement was made, and it actually pissed off the folks I talked to about it -- who felt that their politicians were doing serious harm to European books by having them excluded from such a useful resource.

Separately, a lot of the focus on this new agreement, as with the old agreement, is over how Google treats orphan works. Again, I have to admit that I think most people are making a much bigger deal of this than it warrants. The orphan works stuff really covers a very small number of works. And giving rightsholders ten years to claim their rights seems more than adequate to me. I just don't see what the big deal is here. The real issue is that we have orphan works at all. Under the old (more sensible) copyright regime, you actually had to proactively declare your copyright interest. The only reason we have orphan works at all is that we got rid of such a system in the ongoing effort of copyright maximalists to wipe out the public domain.

Anyway, I think this is all something of a sideshow. I still stand by my original feeling towards the settlement, which is that I'm upset anyone felt it was necessary at all. Google had a strong fair use claim that I would have liked to have seen taken all the way through the courts. And, of course, this settlement really has nothing at all to do with the main issue of the lawsuit (that fair use question) and is really a debate over a separate issue: how to take the books Google scans and trying to turn them into a "book store" rather than more of a "library." And, in doing so, the important fair use question gets completely buried -- which I find unfortunate.

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Newspaper Industry Lawyers Attack Fair Use, Claim Google Is Illegal

from the and-so-it-begins dept

Hmm. So, on Monday Rupert Murdoch suggests that the courts would reject fair use as a concept, and by Friday two newspaper industry lawyers just happen to have an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal explaining how Google violates copyright law by caching the websites it indexes. If the names of the lawyers -- Bruce W. Sanford and Bruce D. Brown -- sound vaguely familiar, that's because they're the same two lawyers who, six months ago, wrote a laughably ridiculous editorial (that time for the Washington Post) proposing special new copyright laws to save newspapers, while destroying pretty much everything that makes the internet useful. Of course, both the Washington Post and the WSJ conveniently left out the fact that these two lawyers regularly represent newspapers and other media and entertainment firms -- even as that seems rather relevant (what happened to those FTC disclosure laws?).

While I do actually agree with the lawyers that it's a shame the focus on the Google Book Search settlement avoided the big fair use question, I think they're entirely wrong to suggest that Google itself violates copyright law.

The copyright code allows public libraries to copy texts as long as there is no "direct or indirect commercial advantage." But that does not describe what search engines do. They use the complete copies they take for free to sell the advertising that has made them enormously profitable. This has a direct impact on book publishers, and on the publishers of magazines and newspapers that are losing the advertising that once supported them. According to Ken Auletta's recently released book "Googled," its search business alone now takes in 40% of all advertising across the Internet.

Perhaps Sanford and Brown are unfamiliar with basic copyright law, but the commercial advantage issue is only a small part of copyright law, and there are plenty of well-established cases of fair use in commercial use. In fact, I'd suggest that they consult the very media companies they work for, as most of them regularly rely on fair use defenses for reprinting or broadcasting content -- despite the fact that they're very commercial entities.

Furthermore, it appears that Sanford and Brown are either unfamiliar with how Google works -- or are purposely misrepresenting it. In the case of most news stories, Google has little or no ads. It only recently put ads on Google News -- long after the decline in ad revenue for newspapers. Besides, if local advertisers are finding a better return by advertising on Google, isn't that a good thing? That's called competition, and I'm surprised these lawyers would be against that.

In the last year, many fresh ideas have begun to circulate on how to help the publishing industry transition profitably to the online world. But without legal reform to back up these new business models, publishers will not have the bargaining power to make the search engines into true partners willing to compensate them meaningfully for their copyrights.

Yes, proposals like the ones that you guys suggested in the Washington Post without disclosing who pays your bills? Funny how that works. And those proposals are not about "helping the publishing industry transition profitably." Plenty of smart publishers are perfectly profitable. The proposals are about protecting the status quo and hurting the innovators who better serve the market. Sanford and Baker are trying to protect their big clients, but they'd be better off telling them to innovate, rather than push bogus editorials and pass ridiculous laws designed to hold back progress.

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Switzerland Continues To Fight Google Street View; Takes Google To Court

from the swiss-neutrality dept

A few months ago, when Google launched its "Street View" tool in Switzerland, the government got upset and told Google to take the site down because it violated people's privacy. This was despite the fact that Google had been discussing the project with the government and put in place multiple privacy safeguards, including blurring faces and license plates. Apparently, it wasn't enough. Mr. LemurBoy alerts us to the news that Switzerland is now taking Google to court over Street View, claiming that it doesn't blur people enough, and that sometimes the cameras can see over fences or walls. Of course, anyone walking down the street can see the same things as well, and if they're tall enough, they can see over walls. Is Switzerland going to take tall people to court as well?

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Would Google Be Liable Under The Pirate Bay Ruling?

from the answer-is-hazy dept

Michael Carrier, a law professor specializing in intellectual property law, was kind enough to let us know about a paper he recently wrote analyzing the Swedish court's ruling in The Pirate Bay Case, and seeing how the reasoning set forth might apply to two other services: Grokster and Google. Grokster, of course, was a key player in a similar US lawsuit, that eventually resulted in the service shutting down. While many believe that the Supreme Court said Grokster was illegal, in reality, the ruling on the case only found that Grokster could be liable as a third party. Grokster itself settled before the lower court could rule on the issue, though co-defendant Streamcast was eventually found liable.

Carrier's analysis suggests that the Swedish ruling over The Pirate Bay did not go into nearly enough detail on why it made its ruling. Many of the explanations are quite vague, and could be broadly applied to other services. The most interesting part of the paper looks at how Google would fare under the same conditions -- and it finds that while Google has some distinct differences from The Pirate Bay, one could read the ruling in such a way that it absolutely would apply to Google as well -- which has troubling implications. At the very least, it suggests that the Swedish court did not fully understand the technology or the implications of such a ruling, and was more influenced by the fact that it seemed like The Pirate Bay must be bad, and therefore decided to support that in the ruling. But without carefully highlighting why The Pirate Bay is different than Google, the ruling is too vague and potentially dangerous.

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Google Doesn't Rely On Intellectual Property For Its Leadership Position

from the stop-saying-it dept

In the various debates we have on intellectual property, we often hear people insisting that Google's dominance is based on intellectual property -- even though there's very little evidence to support this at all. The people who make this argument are guilty of the same mistake made in studies that count all things covered by intellectual property laws as if they only exist because of those laws. Entertainment industry lobbyists, like The Copyright Alliance, love to tout that "$1.52 trillion of the nation's GDP" comes from intellectual property. But that's both misleading and wrong. The number itself is exaggerated, but it also gives credit to intellectual property for anything that touches IP. For example, when we dug into the methodology, we saw that the study counts things that clearly were not because of IP law: such as furniture and jewelry. Are the Copyright Alliance and its entertainment backers really trying to suggest that without copyright law we would have no furniture or jewelry?

Similarly, Google often gets lumped into these discussions, with people insisting that its position in the market is due to copyright and patents. Google does, in fact, have a bunch of patents -- but I watch the patent app filings and patent grants on a bunch of different companies each week, and Google tends to file significantly fewer patents than other comparable companies. Furthermore, I don't know of a single case where Google even hinted at or threatened another company with a patent infringement suit (if there are any examples, please let me know). It appears that Google has focused very much on just using patents for defensive purposes, since it is regularly sued by others for infringement.

Matt Asay, over at News.com, has now highlighted an even stronger example of how Google is showing that it's not relying on intellectual property, but on execution, for its business position. The company recently open sourced its Closure tools, which it uses to build its web services (disclosure: I'm good friends with one of the folks involved in this project, and yes, he reads Techdirt regularly). As Asay puts it:

In many ways, Google is giving away the recipe to those that would like to build a Google clone.

The problem? Google is so much more than software.

In fact, one of the primary reasons that Google can write and open-source so much software is that it isn't a software company. Not even remotely. I could have every line of Google's software, both open source and proprietary, and I couldn't hope to compete with Google.

Google is what Google does with the software, and not the software itself.

It's the execution, not the idea. It's the service, not the code.

In fact, this sort of activity confuses the hell out of companies that do rely on intellectual property. Again, Asay makes this clear:

Google and Red Hat have moved beyond software. Software enables their operations, but software doesn't define such operations. Google, for its part, is open sourcing Microsoft, one line of code at a time, and Microsoft hasn't a clue as to how to respond, because it only knows the old world: competition through better IP.

And that -- right there -- is the key point we keep trying to make around here. You don't need to rely on intellectual property. And, if you do, you are opening yourself up wide to competition that doesn't rely on IP and innovates in a way that simply cuts your legs out from under you. Yet... we'll still hear stories for years about how all of Google's billions are because of its intellectual property, even as it gives away more and more of it each and every day.

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Is Murdoch's Move Against Google Really About Twitter And Facebook?

from the no,-not-even-close dept

I'm a big believer in the idea that "earned media" or "earned links" are increasingly important online. That's the idea that growing numbers of people are relying on news links that are being passed to them via friends on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It's about recognizing that more and more often news stories "find people" rather than the other way around. That is, people are increasingly getting links from friends, acquaintances and colleagues, rather than going searching for the news. And those "earned" links or "passed links" are quite valuable because friends are more likely to trust and pay attention to what is personally sent to them, rather than what's just on the front page of a news site.

However, even given all of that, I'm not sure I buy Mark Cuban's explanation for Rupert Murdoch and his plan to stop Google from indexing his sites. Cuban says that it's all about this recognition that such earned links are becoming so important these days, and Murdoch realizes that links from Twitter and Facebook are growing in value, whereas links from Google have little value. To be honest, I'd be surprised if Murdoch had thought through it that carefully, but more to the point, I'm not sure I believe the full premise. Yes, those links are valuable, but they need to start somewhere, and one of the ways they start is from news junkies using aggregators like Google News to find the news and start passing them around. Blocking that starting process makes little sense. On top of that, even when I'm passed a link, I'll often use Google News or other sites to dig deeper. Taking News Corp. sites out of the picture doesn't help at all. And, finally, while I keep hearing about sites getting so much more traffic from such passed links these days, I can say with authority that on Techdirt, they're still a tiny fraction of the traffic we get from Google.

So, yes, directly passed links from friends or colleagues are valuable and important, but it's a part of a wider ecosystem of news sharing that Google News and other aggregators are most certainly a large part of. Saying that blocking Google News makes sense because of things like Twitter and Facebook ignores how Google News plays into those links even being on Twitter and Facebook.

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Jenzabar Says That Google Blog Post Is 'Hearsay', Not Official Google Statement

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Last month, we wrote about the highly troubling efforts by the head of software firm Jenzabar to abuse trademark law to stifle criticism of that company's founder and CEO (who, earlier in her life, was famous for "leading" part of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square). She was upset at the makers of a documentary film that was somewhat critical of her, and she tried to use trademark law against them, after an attempt at defamation failed. There is simply no trademark violation at all in this situation... but it is a company with lots of cash suing some independent documentary film makers, so it has all the appearances of filing a lawsuit just to cause trouble for the filmmakers.

Our posts were based on some blog posts by Public Citizen, criticizing Jenzabar and its founder/CEO Ling Chai. Rather than recognizing that it's going too far, Jenzabar apparently decided to go on the attack. Public Citizen's Paul Alan Levy alerts us to the news that Chai and Jenzabar are now claiming that Public Citizen's blogging about the case is illegal.

Specifically, the complaint from Jenzabar is that Levy pointing out that Google has stated that it does not use metatags in its search algorithms is not admissible and will "cause prejudice," because it is not an official statement from Google. That, of course, is silly. Google has made it clear for a while that it doesn't use metatags, but this particular announcement came from Google's Matt Cutts (disclaimer: an acquaintance/friend of mine) and was on Google's official blog, and Matt regularly speaks for Google on these sorts of issues. Yet, Jenzabar claims that it's "hearsay." That seems like a pretty difficult position to take. Jenzabar really wants to keep insisting that Google uses metatags, even as Google is making clear it does not? And it wants to force the court to censor blog posts to keep living in that fantasy world? Good luck with that...

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Murdoch Says Fair Use Can Be Barred By Courts; Will Probably Remove Sites From Google

from the suicide-squeeze dept

And we thought that perhaps -- just perhaps -- Rupert Murdoch was coming to his senses with the plan to delay putting up a paywall. Turns out that may have been wishful thinking. Mathew Ingram alerts us to the news that Murodch has suggested that News Corp. might actually remove its sites from Google. Of course, I won't actually believe it until it happens, but he has had his minions going around slamming Google even as News Corp. offers its own aggregators. But actually following through and removing News Corp's sites from Google would be a huge step to take -- though one right off the side of a big cliff. Still, I'm sure it would make for a fun case study.

In the meantime, his explanation is really quite stunning. He claims that he believes fair use is a concept that the courts will reject:

"There's a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether..."

Wow. Of course, if that's true, then (again) we need to point out that News Corp. has been making use of fair use for years with its own aggregators. In fact, most news organizations regularly make use of fair use. Perhaps News Corps' lawyers who work in their news divisions might want to sit Murdoch down and explain the importance of fair use from a reporting perspective. They might also want to point him to the history of fair use within copyright law, in case he thinks it's something that was just made up yesterday.

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Time For Palm To Drop WebOS And Embrace Android

from the the-time-has-come dept

It appears that Wall Street is giving up on Palm after sales of the Pre have been massively disappointing, and Sprint (their only US partner) appears to be focusing more and more on HTC Android-powered phones these days. At the same time, developers are recognizing that if they're creating mobile apps, they need to decide which platforms to work on, and the markets for the iPhone and Android smartphones look a lot more exciting.

This is, in large part, due to poor planning on the part of Palm and Sprint. First, Palm was way too slow in really opening up its developer program. By the time it finally got around to it, more and more Android phones were hitting the market, with much more of a marketing push. Developers, given the choice, will go for the platform that actually has users. That's why I still say it was a huge mistake for Palm and Sprint not to have figured out a way to give away the Palm Pre for free. The thing that Pre needed more than anything else was market share. With market share it could attract developers and a loyal following. Without that, Palm is dead and everyone knows it. Having failed at that, and now thrown away its head start over the rush of Android-powered devices hitting the market, Palm is quickly looking like an afterthought, just months after the Pre was released.

I actually stopped by a Sprint store earlier this week, because I was interested in seeing its recent Android-powered phones in person. I played around with them, and then picked up the Palm Pre as well -- and I have to admit that the hardware on the Pre is really nice. It's just a much nicer overall package than the HTC Hero (an Android-powered phone) -- more compact, had a more solid feel, and the slide out keyboard is actually quite nice (if a bit small). But, after seeing all the developer support moving towards Android, I have no interest in betting on a dying OS. And that's when I wondered why Palm didn't just release an Android-powered Pre as well. I recognize that it's got a lot invested in webOS, but it's a sunk cost and a losing strategy.

A few years back, after years supporting its own Palm operating system, the company started offering Treo's that supported Windows Mobile. It's time to do that again, but for Android, letting the company actually make use of a much larger, committed developer community, rather than trying to keep the whole thing in-house.

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Is Google Going Better Than Free On Navigation? Will That Set Off Antitrust Alarms?

from the should-it? dept

A few friends have passed along Bill Gurley's excellent (as usual) analysis of how Google is disrupting the navigation market by ditching the two big players in the space (Tele Atlas and Navteq), going it alone and also (the big news) offering its navigation info for free. Gurley points out that the truly disruptive part is that Google is actually offering mobile operators a deal that is better than free, in that they get to share in some of the ad revenue associated with anyone using the services. The point is pretty clear: those who are relying on the old business model of getting paid for navigation info are likely in serious trouble.

Of course, there are some perception issues. Plenty of companies who have tried a "we'll pay you" approach to marketing often find that it actually breeds some level of mistrust, as partners/users start wondering why, and if there's some sort of nasty catch. Google, of course, has a pretty good reputation, and ought to be able to overcome that issue. However, it does make me wonder if this will set off the Justice Department (and Google's enemies) on some silly witchhunt, claiming that this is somehow "predatory pricing." That, of course, is ridiculous if you actually think it through. The only real problem with predatory pricing is if it's used purposely to drive others out of business to then jack up prices. But Google's idea is to just give it more opportunity to make ad revenue. It's not predatory, it's just smart from a business sense. However, with so much scrutiny on Google these days, you could certainly see this backfiring.

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