Trapdoor Books

Is Google Big Brother? Better Watch What You Read

Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by Chris Matney in Book Publishing, Front Page Posts

There are a number of articles circulating around the web today about the Google Book Search program. Now, I have blogged on this topic before, but the case is taking a predictable, although interesting turn.

As a quick recap of the program, Google wants to scan every book ever published into an e-book that can be read and sold online. As of April, the company was at 7 million books and counting. Now, this includes books that are currently being published – scanning, indexing them, and showing snippets online is protected under the Fair Use doctrine. If the book is still for sale, Google will give you a link to buy it. If not, you can buy it from Google. There are three major problems with this approach.

First, Google is selling its advertising next to currently-published books. So, if you search on “Harry Potter”, Google makes a fraction of a penny from the advertiser who is paying to put up their annoying banner on the page. The problem is that the author and publisher are not getting their fraction of a fraction of a penny from this. A big lawsuit was settled in 2007 that set up the Book Rights Registry to deal with this issue – insuring that, if the rights holder can be found, they get their money. Cool.

Second, in many, many cases (read 5 million of the 7 million books) the rights holders cannot be found. Normally, if Google didn’t get their permission to include the book in the project, Google would get fined $150,000 if the owner surfaces and sues. So, Google has asked the government to give them (and them alone) an exemption from prosecution. If an author doesn’t know to go to the Book Rights Registry by tomorrow (September 9, 2009), they are forfeiting their rights to sue Google. If approved, this decision by the government will create a monopoly which has worked so well for the phone companies, cable companies…. This is still an active issue with Google’s competitors heading the opposition – Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo to name a few.

The final issue, and the one that is just rearing its ugly head, is that Google sells your private information to whomever for a few bucks. Their new privacy statement (published yesterday) promises that your information is now protected. In a post to Wired, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center disagrees, “Even if Google would write it in blood, there is still the obvious problem that when the government comes knocking the policy doesn’t mean anything.” Google routinely ties your search requests to your name, credit card information, IP address, etc. and keeps this data for years. In the case of the Google Book Search Program that includes what books you are reading. Hello, big brother.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union has joined the fray. They don’t like the idea of Google keeping a “digital dossier” of what we read either. The latest developments are detailed in another Wired article from today, and it looks like the October 7 showdown in court will be an interesting one. BTW, here is a great summary of the entire project.