Google and books

Published: September 7 2009 20:03 | Last updated: September 7 2009 20:03

Google wants to be loved. The company’s project to digitise the world’s books – Google Books – has become the latest battleground in its attempt to convince the world that size and commercial structure should not detract from its inherent goodness and its suitability to manage an ever-greater share of the world’s data. But the task of disguising a corporate behemoth as a cuddly kitten is becoming increasingly difficult.

The concept of Google Books – to provide electronic access to the world’s books – is ambitious and welcome. Readers and researchers are salivating at the prospect of calling up texts until now only available in distant libraries. Many authors see their inky endeavours being reincarnated electronically. Orphaned works will be given a new home.

But turning concept into reality is controversial. The European Commission held a hearing on the matter yesterday. The deadline for submissions to a New York court on a class action settlement that would allow Google Books to speed ahead ran out this morning. Germany and France, unimpressed by last-minute concessions from Google, have posted a defence of Europe’s tight copyright laws, meaning a European Google Books will probably be more restrictive than an American version, further fragmenting what was once hopefully known as the World Wide Web. Absent global internet governance such fragmentation is inevitable.

Critics argue that if Google Books is a public good, it should be provided by public institutions – raising the question of who pays for digitisation, and whether a state project would work. A European one is behind schedule. The suggestion Google is only offering to digitise books for free because it plans to make a dime is surely correct, but the potential public good is too great to be held up by a priggish attitude to private profit.

Claims there is a whiff of authoritarianism about the project – allowing Google to snoop on consumer choice – are wide of the mark. Online booksellers already have search information. There are plenty of privacy concerns around Google – which it should do more to address – but these lie more with the standard search function than with Google Books.

But Google has not helped its cause by being so opaque in telling people how much money has been spent so far on the project. Even with a product as potentially world-changing as Google Books, Google will only win the argument if it is transparent as well as good.

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