As reported by the Newspaper Society: The letter addressed to EC Vice-President Joaquín Almunia, calls Google a “platform for piracy and the spread of malicious networks,” and states that the outcome of the investigation will have “profound significance for many media companies in Europe.”
Thomson writes that News Corp’s “content is vulnerable to exploitation,” and that European citizens’ “ability to access information, independently and meaningfully, is put at risk by the overwhelming power of Google.” News Corp publishes The Sun, The Timesand The Wall Street Journal.
Thomson outlines his concerns for Google’s disregard for intellectual property rights and how its aggregation of data undermines the business model of a content creator.
News Corp’s letter follows newspaper and magazine publishers across Europe calling on the Commission to reject the third set of commitments by Google in the anti-trust investigation. In their view, the commitments are insufficient to restore competition, innovation and consumer choice to the digital market.
In a joint statement, made earlier this month, the European Magazine Media Association; European Newspaper Publishers’ Association; European Publishers Council and Online Publishers Association Europe said:
“After two years of fruitless negotiations, the only credible option left for the Commission is to return to the traditional route of a prohibition decision that deals with all grave competition concerns, including those raised since the launch of the investigation in 2010 and which have not yet been addressed at all.”
