European Legislator Urging the Breakup of Google Has Ties to a Law Firm
Andreas Schwab, a German member of the European Parliament, is “of counsel” at the law and lobbying firm CMS Hasche Sigle, which has represented some of the German publishing interests that have been eager to declaw Google.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/26...-law-firm/
This issue is all about money. German publishers are annoyed that Google won't pay them any royalties for using excerpts from their websites. Funny thing is that without those excerpts on Google News, their websites would have almost no visitors. That is unless they decide to use another search engine to show the snippets and pay royalties for using them. Too bad no other search engine has a presence as commanding as Google. Even worse is that search engines cannot pay a dime if they don't make any money by using the content.
These people can give all the excuses they want for this push to break Google up but we see it for what it really is: It's German publishers desperately trying to stymie the impressive growth that Google is enjoying in Europe. I'm very worried by this situation because Google might end up losing in the end - when you pit politicians against big enterprises like Google, politicians often win. After all, they are the ones that make the law.