Approving the Google Book Settlement (GBS) and giving the company a monopoly would 'make it a dangerous threat to competitors', according to an article recently published in the Financial Times. The Open Book Alliance (OBA) has stated that it concurs with the views expressed in the article. The Financial Times write-up seeks to describe the ambitions of the Google Books project and the danger posed by GBS.
The OBA notes that while Google talks about its voracious scanning - 15 million books at last count - in the frame of its stated corporate mission to organise the world's information, the fact is that, in practice, the company is monetising the world's information. It further says that 98 percent of Google's revenues come from advertising, and more specifically, directed advertising targeted at Google users based on information that the search engine collects about them.
On a separate, but related, matter, the New York Times editorialised on Google's proposed acquisition of ITA Software (a provider of air travel search software), arguing that 'Google cannot abuse its dominance in search to shut out the competition'. These concerns are seen to be equally applicable to the GBS. A Google monopoly, whether over books or over travel, and whether acquired by an abuse of the class action process or by purchasing another company, is bad for competition and bad for consumers, according to OBA.
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