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European Report
Google Meets the Belgians
By Paul Belien
Monday, September 25, 2006
Belgium is currently getting a lot of attention in tech circles because Google Inc. lost two court cases in Belgium in barely three weeks. On Friday the American internet search company lost an appeal against a Brussels court's requirement that Google.be publish on its home page the verdict ordering Google News on 5 September to stop publishing news excerpts and small photos from Belgium's French-speaking (Walloon) newspapers without paying them.
Google News, which debuted in 2002, scans thousands of news outlets and highlights the top stories under common categories such as world and sports. Many stories carry a small image, or thumbnail, along with the headline and the first sentence or two. Visitors can click on the headline to read the full story at the source's website. Though these referrals generate a lot of traffic, and though Google does not edit any content, the Walloon newspaper editors claim that Google's news site steals traffic from their individual newspapers' sites. Last Monday Google removed the Walloon newspapers from all its Google.be indexes, including the popular Google search engine.
The Brussels court ruling does not apply to Belgium's Dutch-speaking (Flemish) papers because the latter are not linked to on Google News. When Google launched its news service the Flemish papers wrote the company a letter announcing that they did not want to be referred to on Google News
The French news agency AFP has also sued Google for at least $17.5 million in damages, arguing that Google has agreed to pay The Associated Press for stories and photographs.
Google is disliked by some European governments, because it is perceived to be "too American." The French and German governments announced last January that they want to establish a state-funded European rival to Google. The Franco-German project is called "Quaero" – from the Latin "I search." Quaero.com, however, already exists. It is the website of... an American company.
Paul Belien is the editor of the Flemish quarterly Secessie and the editor-in-chief of The Brussels Journal. He is a columnist at the Flemish weekly Pallieterke and at the Flemish monthly Doorbraak and a regular contributor to the Flemish conservative monthly Nucleus, which he co-founded in 1990. Paul can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com
