AMSTERDAM (AP) — As Google bowed to a European court
ruling to consider users’ claims to remove embarrassing search results,
the company took the first step toward preventing any more such
punishing decisions — acknowledging it has an image problem in Europe.
The
company was stunned in May when a court said it would have to accept
Europeans’ "right to be forgotten" online and field their requests to
delete links to personal information in search results. It opened the
doors to such applications on Friday, and took the opportunity to offer a
new, humbler message to European authorities.
"I wish we’d been
more involved in a real debate in Europe," Google CEO Larry Page said in
remarks published by the Financial Times Friday. "That’s one of the
things we’ve taken from this, that we’re starting the process of really
going and talking to people."
Some would say Page’s realization comes not a moment too soon.
The
company, which since its early days has put a premium on keeping a
positive image, has taken a beating in Europe in recent months. Its
public relations machine seemed to run completely off the rails in May,
when the European Court of Justice enshrined the ‘right to be forgotten’
— a concept Google had said amounted to censorship and which it had
fought to undermine.
Criticism of Google’s dominance in search —it
enjoys a 90 percent market share in Europe — reached a fever pitch this
year, with competing search engines and major publishers attacking the
company, and even consumer rights groups piling on.
Politicians,
perhaps smelling a shift in public attitude, began openly using the
company as a punching bag. Shortly before European elections, German
economic affairs minister Sigmar Gabriel criticized the company for its
tax avoidance, privacy policies, and dominance, and suggested it might
need to be broken up.
And in a development that should deeply
concern a company whose motto is "Don’t Be Evil," some European online
freedoms groups are now identifying it as public enemy number one.
That
has boosted the case for the European Commission, the EU’s executive,
to demand Google change the way it displays its search results to allow
for greater competition.
If the two can’t reach a compromise deal,
Google could face fines worth billions of dollars, as Microsoft did in
the 2000s.
Anti-Google sentiment used to be an "edge phenomenon,"
said Hans de Zwart of Bits of Freedom, a Dutch digital rights group.
"Now it’s slowly moving toward the core," he said. "More and more people
are feeling this."
Reasons for the company’s fall from favor
include products such as Google Glass that raise privacy concerns, as
well as ripple effects from recent revelations about U.S. government spy
programs.
Zwart said that fairly or not, Google has become directly linked to the National Security Agency in many
Europeans’ minds.
"Now
we have a very clear argument for why it is a bad idea to store data in
a centralized fashion with an American company," Zwart said.
"I think it’s trivial for the NSA, if they know I have a Gmail account, to get all the data from
it."
To
comply with the court’s May 12 ruling, Google announced Friday it has
opened a digital hotline to let Europeans complain when links to
embarrassing personal information about them turns up in a search of
their names. The complaints will be vetted and removed unless a
company-appointed panel says the public’s right to access the
information outweighs a complainant’s right to privacy.
CEO Page told the FT the company is "trying now to be more European" and will think about
privacy in "a more European context."
"A very significant amount of time is going to be spent in Europe talking," he said.
That means putting money where the company thinks more mouths should be.
Shortly
after the ruling, Google posted a raft of help-wanted ads seeking
"bright, well-organized and spirited individuals to work with a stellar
team on cutting edge technology issues" at its offices in Berlin, Rome,
London and Brussels.
The job? Lobbying.
"You will handle our various product agendas with policy makers inside and outside government,"
reads one ad in Berlin.
The
company has room to expand efforts to get its view heard. Google
employed seven lobbyists in Brussels in 2013, according to voluntary
disclosure figures, and spent around 1.5 million euros (currently worth
$2 million). By comparison, Microsoft employed 16 and spent 4.75 million
euros.
In Washington D.C., Google outspent Microsoft $14 million to $10.5 million.
Mario
Marinello, an economist at the European policy think-tank Bruegel, said
he thinks Google can settle its antitrust case with the European
Commission by arguing its search results are what consumers want, even
if the company’s competitors are frustrated by the company’s dominance.
"I
don’t want to defend Google," he said. But "all this lobbying has kind
of shifted the question to a very superficial level, which is
dangerous."
For Google, it is not clear whether lobbying alone will be enough.
Activist Faith Bosworth of a German group known as Peng Collective said Google has been a media darling
for too long.
"They’ve
seen how others have gained a bad reputation, and until recently
they’ve done a good job of avoiding those mistakes," she said.
"They’ve
put money into supporting freedom of expression and been behind some
really progressive things, but at the end of the day, they’re a
corporation seeking to make money," she said.
She said that while
individually Google employees probably mean well, the company’s business
model relies on gathering ever-greater amounts of information.
As a result, Internet users should view Google with a critical eye.
"I think it will be very difficult to live up to ‘Don’t Be Evil’," she said.