[Advocacy Advisors] That Google vote today

[Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov]

Hi James,

@Karl thanks for the analysis! Very helpful.

I honestly believe that what it was a media stunt. Here's what I think
happened:

The larger groups are in a grand coalition now and took some questionable
positions - regarding international trade agreements and not dealing with
some leaks about J-C Juncker.

Simultaneously, in Germnay there is a lot of polemics surrounding the
failed "ancillary copyright" for publishers (trying to get Google to pay
for snippets displayed in search results). The German Commissioner
Oettinger has publicly toyed with the idea of introducing it Europe wide,
perhaps as part of a copyright reform deal. While such a piece of
legislation would be DOA, punching giants like Google scores you a lot of
sympathy points with the media and the public. And since it is just a
resolution, it doesn't cost much political capital.

The larger parties wanted to show that they're not always just defending
"big business" and care about the "little guy" instead. What better way
than to do this in a fuzzy, non-binding resolution? Most jumped on the
bandwagon.

I wouldn't read too much into this, but then again, the two largest groups
voted in favour of it. Perhaps we can spin points 1-3 in our favour
somehow, in case they don't support Free Knowledge in the future. The text
reads: "address all existing barriers", " any legislative proposal related
to the digital single market must comply with the EU Charter of Fundamental
Rights" and "tackle and combat the digital divide in order to fully grasp
the potential ".

Dimi

2014-11-28 2:28 GMT+01:00 Karl Sigfrid <karl at wikimedia.be>:

>  James,
>
> I cannot offer an in-depth analysis, but here are a few additions to what
> you have already written:
>
> The resolution originates from within the EPP group, authored by, the
> German Christian Democrat Andreas Schwab. As you point out, it was then
> tabled by members from both EPP and S&D.
>
> Here is the entire thing for anyone interested:
>
>
> http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=MOTION&reference=B8-2014-0286&language=EN
>
> What some have described as a call for a Google break-up can be found as
> item number 10 in the list. Judging from the non-committal formulations, it
> is probably not meant to be taken as more than a general signal of
> discontent.
>
> The parliament says in the resolution that the Commission should
> “consider” proposals to unbundle search engines from other commercial
> services “as one potential long term means” to achieve its policy goals.
>
> In other words, they don't really take a stand for unbundling. Only for
> viewing unbundling as one of many options, but that doesn't make a very
> good headline.
>
> A reason for the resolution to come now could be that we have a new
> antitrust Commissioner whom the EP wants to encourage to follow up on
> previous efforts to scrutinize practices such as integrating Google
> services with the search engine.
>
> An article which I found informative was this one from from the NYT:
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/business/international/google-european-union.html?_r=0
>
> Best regards,
> Karl
>
> James Heald skrev den 11/27/2014 9:10 PM:
>
> I appreciate that it was of symbolic value only, and the text is
> exhortative only, but Dimi and Karl, could you give us a bit of background
> on the Google vote today.
>
> It's always a bit difficult for outsiders to understand what's going on,
> who's voted for what and why, because even the recorded roll-count votes
> aren't published for a couple of days, and without really following the
> dossier it takes a lot of work to unpack which amendment is which, and
> which groups went which way over it.
>
> The crude picture I've got from tweets here and there is that there was an
> amendment to take out the break-up language from the resolution, with (I
> think) the Liberals and some national delegations critical of the measure,
> and the Greens seeing it as a distraction; or worse, as a Trojan horse to
> force Google to have to index links even if it had to pay for the
> privilege.
>
> But these amendments were voted down roughly 3-to-1 -- presumably by other
> groups who hadn't written them.
>
>
> Both the Economist and policy tank EPIC had some things to say about why
> it doesn't appear to make that much sense
>
>
> http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21635000-european-moves-against-google-are-about-protecting-companies-not-consumers-should-digital?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/shoulddigitalmonopolies
>
> http://www.epicenternetwork.eu/briefings/unbundling-search-engines/
>
> Even if Google's market share is massive, search is a very contestable
> market, and there's very little consumer lock-in.
>
> Google's Android can arguably be said to be pro-competitive, a defensive
> effort that made sense for Google, to prevent its core offerings being
> sidelined at the Operating System level.
>
>
> So why did this motion get so many MEPs to pile in with their support?
>
> Which were the groups that pushed it, and why?
>
> And if, as some are saying, this is the publishers showing their
> legislative power with a warning shot against those who seek a more
> liberalised downstream copyright environment, is that analysis right; and
> does it suggest that the forces of restriction have a strong hold on a
> large swathe of MEPs ?
>
> I'd be interested to know the team's analysis.
>
>   --  James.
>
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