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02.14.07
Belgian Newspapers Score Victory Against Google
 By
Joe Lewis
In a court ruling early Tuesday, a judge ruled in favor of Belgian newspapers in their dispute with Google, citing that the Internet company was guilty of copyright infringement.
The Brussels court ruled in favor of Copiepresse, a consortium that represents the eighteen newspapers that brought complaints against Google.
The group was upset that articles from its publications were appearing in the archives of Google News, some of which the newspapers offer as part of a subscription service only.
Google vowed to immediately appeal the decision, claiming that the articles appearing on its news site do not violate any type of copyright law.
“We believe that Google News is entirely legal,” the company said in a statement. “We only ever show the headlines and a few snippets of text and small thumbnail images. If people want to read the entire story they have to click through to the newspaper’s Web site.”
Even though the courts sided with the content owners in this case, it also ruled that it would be up to copyright owners to contact Google by e-mail to address any time of dispute concerning articles appearing on Google News. Google would then have 24 hours to withdraw the content or face a daily fine of $1,295 (1,000 euros).
And speaking of fines, the court imposed a retroactive fine of $32,390 (25,000 euros) for each day Google did not comply with Copiepresse’s request to remove the Belgian content from the site.
This figure is much less than was indicated in an earlier judgment, which could have potentially forced Google to cough up $1.3 million (1 million euros) a day.
On a personal note, I’d like to congratulate the Belgian newspapers on their resounding legal victory.
For their efforts, they’ve won the fabulous prize of receiving even less traffic to their sites.
About the Author:
Joe is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.
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Vodafone, Google Make Mobile Maps
 By
Doug Caverly
Vodafone and Google have announced plans “to develop a location-based version of Google Maps for mobile,” which should present users with a range of local search and navigation options.
Americans may be out of luck, however – the two companies only mentioned “key European markets” in an official statement.
You can’t really blame them, though. Through Verizon, Vodafone can claim only 23,230 customers in the U.S. (as of December 31). In Europe, it has upwards of 98,000 “patrons.”
Frank Rovekamp, Vodafone’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, hinted at that issue when he spoke about the Vodafone-Google deal.
“It is a prime example of how Vodafone, through its location service and distribution scale, can complement Google’s products and unlock mass-market access to exciting services,” he stated (italics mine).
As for Google’s part in all of this, Nikesh Arora, Vice President of EMEA Operations, said, “Our goal as a company is to help people find information they’re looking for, so giving Vodafone customers the chance to find out where they are going while on the move is a very important step.”
Naturally, one would hope that Vodafone customers won’t get too involved with Google Maps while driving.
But the technology is set to make its debut in Hungary, and Wikipedia claims that “a bit more than one half of Hungary’s landscape consists mostly of flat to rolling plains,” so there have been worse ideas.
One nod in the direction of safety: “Google and Vodafone are working together to ensure the service provides customers on selected handsets with an automatic user-location capability.”
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.
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