In fact, Google has told us in the past month they have received 1,246,713 removal requests from 24,129 different target domains of 1,296 copyright owners by 1,087 reporting organizations. So only just over a thousand copyright owners submitted removal requests and top five include Microsoft with over a half a million URL removal requests last month followed by British Recorded Music Industry, NBC Universal, Elegant Angel and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Here is a chart showing the increase in removal requests by week:

Google said they respond to these requests incredibly quickly, often in less than 11 hours.

Google lists all these details on this transparency report site, showing that the top five targeted domains include filestube.com, torrentz.eu, 4shared.com, zippyshare.com and kat.ph. In fact, Google lists each take down request for anyone to see and updates the numbers and reports daily.

Overall the data goes back to July 2011.

Google has not informed us the number of false claims being issued but said they do offer a way to counter notice on these take down requests. Google did say they do comply with 97% of the take down requests.

For more details, check out the copyright removal request section of the Google Transparency Report.

Almunia acknowledges Google’s prior statements about a willingness to settle and suggests that if a settlement can be reached Europe and Google will be able to put the matter behind them:

I believe that these fast-moving markets would particularly benefit from a quick resolution of the competition issues identified. Restoring competition swiftly to the benefit of users at an early stage is always preferable to lengthy proceedings, although these sometimes become indispensable to competition enforcement

Almunia clearly doesn’t want years of litigation and he’s banking that Google doesn’t either. I’m not an antitrust expert and even less familiar with European antitrust law.  However it’s not clear that Europe has a conclusive case against the company. It is clear, however, that the European legal system is somewhat more sympathetic than US law to the various antitrust arguments against Google (e.g., search neutrality).

The four areas of “concern”

Here are the four areas of concern from Almunia that involve a potential “abuse” of market power by Google:

1. Almunia does buy into the “search bias” or “search neutrality” idea. He says, “In general search results, Google displays links to its own vertical search services differently than it does for links to competitors. We are concerned that this may result in preferential treatment compared to those of competing services, which may be hurt as a consequence.”
2. The second area concerns Google indexing reviews that “it uses in its own offerings” (e.g., Places). Almunia characterizes this as plagiarism of a sort: “Google may be copying original material from the websites of its competitors such as user reviews and using that material on its own sites without their prior authorisation. In this way they are appropriating the benefits of the investments of competitors.”
3. If I understood it correctly, the third area of “abuse” involves AdSense: “The agreements [with publishers displaying Google ads] result in de facto exclusivity requiring them to obtain all or most of their requirements of search advertisements from Google, thus shutting out competing providers of search advertising intermediation services.”
4. The fourth area is one that Microsoft has been arguing for some time. This involves the “portability” of ad campaigns from AdWords to adCenter: “We are concerned that Google imposes contractual restrictions on software developers which prevent them from offering tools that allow the seamless transfer of search advertising campaigns across AdWords and other platforms for search advertising.”

Anti-Google lobbying group FairSearch.org welcomed these findings. It issued an upbeat statement attributed to its European attorney Thomas Vinje:

Today’s statement by European Commission Vice President Joaquín Almunia, identifying four concerns where Google business practices may be considered as abuses of dominance in violation of competition and consumer protection laws, is a welcome development. We are pleased that Commissioner Almunia’s investigation has validated the concern that FairSearch members and many other businesses and consumer advocates have raised about Google’s practices that distort the free market and deprive consumers of the transparency and real choice that only results from competitive markets.

As for Google, it gave us this statement:

We’ve only just started to look through the Commission’s arguments. We disagree with the conclusions but we’re happy to discuss any concerns they might have. Competition on the web has increased dramatically in the last 2 years since the Commission started looking at this and the competitive pressures Google faces are tremendous. Innovation online has never been greater.

Some matters more easily resolved

Google can relatively easily address items 3 & 4 above on the list. These are largely contractual issues and don’t implicate Google’s presentation of search results. Number 2 above also appears relatively easy to resolve. Google can refrain from indexing third party reviews for display in its vertical services (and general search results if necessary).

It does raise a question, however, about whether Google would need to obtain authorization to index other kinds of content ahead of time. Google would have to agree to all of this of course.

A more difficult issue is the first item, where Google is being asked not to display its own “vertical” content (think Maps) in a way that’s more elaborate or otherwise different than competitors’ products. This goes to Google’s ability to innovate with its UI and could have very broad implications for “universal search” and its subsequent iterations (SPYW, knowledge graph, etc). This is the potential stumbling block for any early resolution and the issue that could prevent a complete settlement of the case.

Settlement might not happen across the board

If Google and the European Commission fail to reach a settlement across all areas, it’s not clear to me whether it has the immediate power to start imposing fines or would have to successfully litigate against Google — as the FTC would in the US. While in the US the FTC only has access to “injunctive relief” (non-monetary remedies), the European Commission can impose financial penalties of up to 10 percent of a company’s annual global revenue. In this case that would about to nearly $4 billion.

Both the European Commission and Google have clear incentives to settle. The question is what will they do about the “search neutrality” issue (#1 above)?

Postscript From Danny Sullivan: I’m in agreement with Greg’s analysis here. It’s difficult to see how Google is supposed to resolve the first issue, especially when Bing and Yahoo have done exactly the same things with their vertical search results. For more about this, see:

• Dear Congress: It’s Not OK Not To Know How Search Engines Work, Either
• Bing’s Travel Search & Kayak Favoritism Angers No One, While Google’s Gets Headline Attention From WSJ

However, it could be that if Google agrees to settle over the other concerns, the EU will suddenly discover that the first point is no longer a worrisome issue. Alternatively, I’ve found governments around the world seem to have some fundamental misunderstandings of how search works. Given this, Google could provide some token agreement that makes the EU believe the “problem” here is solved.

It’s also important to note there’s not a fifth finding — that ad spend had any impact on search results. That was one of the questions that the EU raised during its “fishing expedition” survey last year. Clearly it didn’t find enough evidence to raise this as a fifth point to resolve.

Like Greg, I tend to view this letter as a sign of weakness, that the EU isn’t sure that it has a strong enough case to win, so telling Google what its concerns are, and getting back some promises of resolution of any type might allow it to move on.

The report was written by lawyers from the Ammori Group, “a law firm and Internet-law consulting practice whose clients include Google Inc.”

A Shrewd “PR Campaign” by Google

Last week a report by UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh literally made the case that the US First Amendment precludes any claim against Google under antitrust law. That document was structured and read like a formal brief submitted to a court. However the court in this instance is the “court of public opinion” where the “public” consists of policy makers, regulators and legislators.

Google is engaged in what appears to be a very sophisticated and shrewd PR campaign, having lawyers preemptively argue the antitrust issues in public and thereby alert those who would bring formal antitrust claims that their cases are all but sure to fail.

It’s akin to an athlete trying to “psych out” an opponent before a big match. The initiative is intended to create doubt (and fear) among those lawyers who would be on the other side that they risk failure by proceeding against Google. This is not to imply that the substantive legal arguments presented are not persuasive — they are. That’s the point.

If You Can’t Compete … Litigate

The lengthy new document by attorneys Marvin Ammori and Luke Pelican takes principal aim at two related targets: the notion that the public would benefit in any way through regulation of Google and critics’ potential antitrust remedies. It essentially says that Google’s critics are all self-interested competitors arguing the public interest to benefit themselves. However antitrust law doesn’t protect the interests of individual competitors but competition generally to safeguard the public interest:

This article concludes that the cures proposed by the competitors are worse than Google’s alleged disease. The proposed remedies might benefit the short-­term economic of Google’s competitors . . . but benefiting competitors is not the goal of antitrust law. The goal of antitrust law is to promote consumer welfare, competition, and innovation. The proposed remedies, however, would do the opposite: harm consumers, impede competition, and stifle innovation.

The remedies would invite government agencies and technical committees to second-­guess and evaluate both mundane and game-­changing engineering and user-­ interface decisions regarding Google Search, reverse long-­standing fair use principles rooted in constitutional requirements, and empower competitors to litigate rather than compete against daily innovations and disclosures by Google.

Dismantling the Remedies One by One

Using case law and public policy arguments, the Ammori report then lays out and seeks to dismantle each of Google’s critic’s would-be remedies, which the document groups under five headings. Here they are verbatim:

• Search Neutrality: inviting government to second-­guess and reject algorithmic and manual changes to Google Search based on an elusive, ill-defined “neutrality” concept that neither agencies nor technical committees could effectively adjudicate.
• Ten Blue Links, not Universal Search: forbidding Google from presenting answers to search queries as both Google and its largest competitors have done since 2007, with results that deliver a mix of Web links, news links, places, maps, and images, rather than merely providing 10 blue links to Web sites, just as many search engines did years ago.
• Google-­Specific Fair-­Use Limits: forbidding Google from crawling and using others’ Web content while forcing Google to let others crawl and use Google’s content thereby inverting the fair-use doctrine, the trespass-­to-­chattels doctrine, and raising constitutional concerns.
• No Bidding: constraining Google’s ability to compete for acquisitions and exclusive partnerships, harming acquisition targets and consumers while favoring the most deep-­pocketed competitors.
• Continuous Disclosure: requiring numerous ongoing disclosures, many of which Google already provides, and others that would enable spammers to manipulate Google’s search algorithms or empower its less innovative competitors merely to copy new Google products more rapidly.

Regulators Don’t Use “Scarce Resources” on Google

The report begins and concludes with the notion that it’s ultimately a waste of time and scarce resources for regulators (in the US) to pursue an antitrust case against Google:

In short, the FTC has better uses for its scarce resources than pursuing an inquiry or investigation that would merely raise the cost of one rival, Google, for the benefit of other rivals that have proposed unworkable and detrimental remedies for their novel theories of antitrust harm that is effected through “search bias.”

Both the Volokh brief and this new Ammori report are persuasive though I’m not sure they will prevent the FTC from bringing a case against Google. However if it comes, much of the legal research will already have been done.

A Preview of Google’s Legal Arguments?

Yes says UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh in a new paper-cum-legal brief. The document, which was commissioned by Google, also serves as a kind of template for legal arguments Google might make in a US antitrust case. The release of this paper is no doubt designed to “remind” Congress and the FTC that this law exists and that Google would potentially win an antitrust case on these grounds.

The 27 page document (below), replete with case law citations, can be summarized in one sentence: search engine results are editorial judgments, like newspaper content, protected by the First Amendment and thus precluded from being regulated by antitrust law and the US government as protected speech.

Professor: Nobody Can Dictate What Google Can “Say” in SERPs

Professor Volokh argues that Google may put whatever it likes in the SERP in whatever order it deems worthy, including links to its own properties and services and nobody is entitled to intervene and dictate how Google may display search results. It will be a shocking (though not entirely novel) argument to those who’ve complained against Google.

Volokh says two cases, Search King, Inc. v. Google Technology, Inc. (2003) and Langdon v. Google, Inc. (2007), firmly and conclusively establish that search results are protected editorial speech. While the US Supreme Court has not ruled on the specific question of whether search results are protected speech under the First Amendment, Volokh cites numerous Supreme Court decisions that together stand for the idea that “the First Amendment fully protects Internet speech” and “fully pro­tects Internet speakers’ editorial judgments about selection and arrangement of content” (i.e., Google).

The First Amendment vs. Antitrust Law

The most interesting part of the paper concerns the application — or lack of application goes the argument — of antitrust law to Google’s organic SERPs. (The document doesn’t discuss AdWords.) Volokh admits that the government has authority, in some cases, under antitrust law to regulate companies such as newspapers when their practices discriminate unjustly against competitors. However, he argues, this does not extend to matters of editorial discretion, even where the speaker has a “substantial monopoly.”

Volokh cites cases that stand for the broad idea that the protected exercise of speech cannot be regulated by antitrust law: “search engines’ selection and arrangement decisions reflect editorial judgments about what to say and how to say it, which are protected by the First Amendment.” He adds, “[E]conomic regulations may not be used to require a speaker to include certain material in its speech product.”

The bottom line argument is that even under the guise of antitrust enforcement the government cannot interfere with protected (and absolute) editorial discretion (i.e., the Google SERP).

Is Google More Like a Cable TV Company or a Newspaper?

One case that “goes the other way” and could potentially support regulation of the Google SERPs is called Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC (1994). That Supreme Court case held that cable TV operators can be forced to carry programming against their will under federal law. The cable companies had argued that the federal “must carry” law was impermissible content regulation barred by the First Amendment.

Volokh distinguishes the case and argues Google and search engines are not like cable TV companies in several respects. He says in the Turner case there was almost no other way for consumers to access the disputed programming. By contrast he says there are plenty of other ways online to get access to content other than on Google. People can use Bing or Yahoo for example.

The Turner court reportedly held that the cable companies were mere “conduits” of third party speech and not editorial content producers themselves (like newspapers). Google is more like a newspaper than a cable TV company says Volokh. Yet I’m not quite sure the Turner case is that easily brushed aside.

Google is not generating the contents of its own SERPs (except in selected cases such as Google Maps or Google+). Rather it, like cable companies, is conveying third party speech and content (in the form of links). One could persuasively argue that Google is in fact more like a cable company than a newspaper.

Still the government would have a formidable challenge to overcome the weight of First Amendment case law that Volokh cites, which supports Google’s “absolute” discretion over what shows up in SERPs. I agree that it appears a very tough case for the feds to make.

Related Entries

• How “Facebook Search” Could Help Google Escape The Antitrust Noose
• TheFind Joins FairSearch.org To “Restore Balance” To The Search Marketplace
• US Subpoenas Apple For Details About Default iOS Google Search Deal
• Report: FTC Expanding Anti-Trust Investigation Of Google To Include Google+
• Deconstructing “Search Neutrality”
• FTC’s Google Probe Will Probably Come Away Empty Handed
• Santorum & Google’s Search Quality Czar Matt Cutts Makes The Colbert Report
• Once Again: Should Google Be Allowed To Send Itself Traffic?
• The New York Times Algorithm & Why It Needs Government Regulation

According to Bloomberg News, Google told judge Denny Chin that The Authors Guild can’t sue on behalf of the authors because the Guild doesn’t own the copyrights to the books that Google has been scanning since the program was announced in 2004.

Reuters reports that, in response to Google’s claim, Chin said “it would take forever” to resolve individual author’s lawsuits and that it “seems to make sense” to allow the lawsuits to continue as a group. Authors Guild attorney Joanne Zack argued in favor of a class action, saying “it would be a terrible burden on the court if each individual author was forced to litigate.”

The Authors Guild brought its class action suit against Google in 2005, calling Google’s digital book scanning a “massive” copyright infringement. The two sides reached a settlement in 2008 that called for writers to opt-out if they objected to Google scanning their works. Chin rejected that settlement in March 2011, saying the settlement should be opt-in, instead.

Separately today, Google also asked Chin to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the American Society of Media Photographers. That group sued Google in 2010 over the inclusion of copyrighted images that appear in the books Google has been scanning.

Judge Chin indicated that he’ll consider Google’s motions and announce a decision later.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit today revived part of Rosetta Stone’s trademark lawsuit against Google, meaning the search giant’s permitting the use of trademarked terms in AdWords is still legally questionable in the United States. It’s the first time an appellate court has ruled in a case of this kind.

Previously, a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia issued a summary judgment in the case in 2010, essentially saying that the language software maker didn’t have a valid trademark infringement claim against Google. Rosetta Stone appealed.

The company had accused Google of trademark infringement, contributory and vicarious trademark infringement, trademark dilution and unjust enrichment — all related to Google allowing advertisers to use Rosetta Stone’s trademarks as either keywords or ad text in its AdWords program.

Though the appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision with respect to the vicarious infringement and unjust enrichment claims, the judges said the direct infringement, contributory infringement and dilution claims need to be sent back to the Virginia court for further action.

In the direct infringement matter, the appellate court believes the lower court didn’t properly or fully consider some of the evidence, especially where a likelihood of confusion is concerned. Additionally, though the district court applied the “functionality doctrine” in the case, saying that Rosetta Stones trademarks became a part of the function of Google’s technology, the appeals court said the functionality doctrine doesn’t apply.

On the subject of contributory infringement, at issue is whether Google knew or should have known that people using its service were infringing on Rosetta Stone’s trademarks. The court of appeals said this question deserves a closer look, rather than a summary judgment.

Additionally, the court of appeals found that the lower court hadn’t properly applied the legal precedents with regard to trademark dilution, so that matter needs to be reconsidered.

Who Competes with Google?

This question of who competes with Google — and is the market in fact competitive — is central to the analysis of European and US regulators as the antitrust investigations wind their way through “the system” and potentially to the courts. Google sees many more competitors than do its critics and has been trying for several years to widen the scope of the discussion about “search competition.”

If we open the aperture to include vertical sites with a search box (e.g., Yelp, Kayak, Truila) the world looks a great deal more competitive than if we only look at web search engines, which is what most ordinary consumers think when they hear the term “search engine.”

In the latter category there is Google, Bing, Blekko and DuckDuckGo. Blekko and DDG have negligible share. Bing’s share is an essentially flat 29 percent (when combined with Yahoo). In international markets such as China, Japan and Russia Google is the underdog. However in some markets, in Europe and elsewhere around the world, Google’s share of search is larger than in the US.

66 Percent or 83 Percent?

In contrast to the comScore data immediately above, the Pew Internet & American Life Project recently found that Google was the preferred search engine of 83 percent of US survey respondents. Based on a survey of roughly 2,200 US adults, Pew observed that “Fully 83% of searchers use Google more often than any other search engine.  Yahoo is a very distant second at just 6%.”

Many regulators and political officials, encouraged by anti-Google lobbying from rivals, have concluded that Google is simply too powerful and has too much control over the online ecosystem. Whether there are legal grounds for a finding of antitrust liability against Google is a different matter, but I do believe the Europeans will bring some kind of anti-competition case against the company. In addition, the various investigations going on at the federal and state levels against Google could also result in an action in the US.

This is where Facebook comes in.

Specter of Facebook Search Helps Google

The idea that Facebook is developing a search engine that might attract some usage away from Google is precisely the kind of development that could save Google’s bacon — so to speak. The “everyone competes against us” defense that appears in the Bork article and that Google has floated several times is unlikely to be persuasive. What will be much more persuasive is the argument that the world’s largest social network will be bringing search to its 900+ million users around the globe.

Recall when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was deciding whether to approve or block Google’s proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob two years ago. I was one of the many dozens of people interviewed by regulators on the matter. My inference from the interview process and questions I received was that the FTC was predisposed to block the deal. Indeed, from all accounts it appeared that the FTC was going to file suit against the Google acquisition — until Apple bought Quattro Wireless.

Here’s an excerpt from the FTC’s public statement about its decision not to attempt to block the acquisition, explicitly citing Quattro as the basis of its rationale:

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Google’s proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network company AdMob after thoroughly reviewing the deal and concluding that it is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks.

In a statement issued today, the Commission said that although the combination of the two leading mobile advertising networks raised serious antitrust issues, the agency’s concerns ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc. – the maker of the iPhone – to launch its own, competing mobile ad network.

Facebook Like Apple for Google’s Legal Team

The FTC probably decided not that the market would actually be more competitive but that Apple buying Quattro had complicated its arguments and weakened its case.

Facebook is now analogous to Apple in that it provides a potential argument that the search market is competitive, and soon could be come more so if the company launches an improved search capability (whether for site search or the web more broadly). Indeed, Google’s legal team will wave the BusinessWeek article as evidence that the search market is highly dynamic, unpredictable and could change overnight.

And that might be just what Google needs to escape the antitrust noose.

Philip J. Cenedella of the NAHTVA

Google says it’s spending “millions of dollars” to police AdWords ads to ensure they’re not contributing to human trafficking, but the head of a victim’s rights group seems to believe that’s not enough.

Asked what he thinks Google should do, Philip J. Cenedella of the National Association of Human Trafficking Victim Advocates (NAHTVA) says they should, “stop ALL of these ads until they can guarantee 0.0% of the providers of the services are NOT trafficking victims, exploited women, men, girls and boys.”

Based on NAHTVA’s efforts, two lawmakers yesterday wrote a letter to CEO Larry Page questioning the company’s efforts to police possible human trafficking ads itself.

Google maintains it’s doing the best that it can, putting millions of dollars of resources toward solving the problem of bad ads. “We…work closely with law enforcement and other government authorities,” the company said in a statement. “But it’s a constant battle against these bad actors so we are always looking at ways to improve our systems and practices — including by working with leading anti-trafficking organizations.”

The challenge is the sheer number of ads that Google deals with on a regular basis and, even though the company does both manual and algorithmic reviews, bad ads seem to slip through all the time.

With pharmaceutical and other healthcare ads, Google requires that companies go through a certification process before they can advertise. In the U.S., the company also has the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites database (part of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy) to call upon for verification. Other countries have similar organizations that help Google distinguish between legit and rogue pharmacies.

Could such a model be used for online dating sites? In the UK, there appears to be an Association of British Introduction Agencies, and perhaps similar organizations in other countries could help Google vet advertisers.

But David Evans, who has long consulted for and covered the online dating industry at OnlineDatingPost.com, says verifying and vetting these sites just isn’t practical. “Of course [Google] should stop [running ads placed by human traffickers], and I’m sure they will when the pressure is bad enough, but bad actors are like quicksilver — they will break up, adapt strategy and come back together in some other formulation.”

Google should take heart, though, that it’s not the only company under the scrutiny of the anti-human trafficking activists. Says Cenedella, “In 2009, I led the protest against the UAE Embassy in DC. 2010 was Craigslist. 2011 was Backpage (still in process). 2012 is Google. Facebook, Twitter, Bing and others are in our sights.”

Carolyn Maloney

Lawmakers Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) are concerned that Google is profiting from advertisements placed by sex traffickers, expressing these fears in a joint letter to CEO Larry Page. The missive seeks reassurances of the company’s commitment to ferreting out ads that contribute to the activity.

“Whatever Google is doing or not doing to prevent these sorts of advertisements from appearing on their properties, Google has not satisfied a significant number of human rights organizations who have a specialized understanding of how these ads contribute to the human trafficking of women and girls,” the letter said. “We are particularly concerned that these human rights groups may have identified yet another area where Google profits from illicit activities such as Google’s advertising of controlled substances for which your company paid a $500,000,000 forfeiture to the United States last year.”

Victim’s Rights Groups Call For Investigation

Maloney and Blackburn refer to calls by The National Association For Human Trafficking Victim Advocates and other anti-trafficking organizations that Google’s part in accepting and displaying human-trafficking-related ads be investigated. The organization last week wrote to the National Association of Attorneys General saying that it believes Google is not taking enough proactive steps to prevent the ads in question from appearing.

Marsha Blackburn

“If you don’t think that online dating and sex tourism sites are fronts for prostitution and human trafficking, then you have your head in the sand… just Google it. Ads on Craigslist and Backpage.com pale in comparison to the volume that Google generates,” Kathryn Griffin-Townsend, a former victim and anti-human-trafficking advocate, said in a statement.

Specifically, the groups urge doubters to search for terms like “adult fun” and “buy foreign women” on Google, and see what results appear.

Google Says It’s Spending Millions On Enforcement

Google says it does ban ads for sex trafficking, child pornography and prostitution: “We have invested millions of dollars in monitoring and enforcing this ban — using the latest technology as well as manual review by teams who are specially trained to get bad ads, and bad advertisers, off Google. We also work closely with law enforcement and other government authorities. But it’s a constant battle against these bad actors so we are always looking at ways to improve our systems and practices — including by working with leading anti-trafficking organizations.”

Anti-human-trafficking organizations have successfully mounted a campaign to shut down the “Adult Services” section on Craigslist, and are gaining momentum with a protest of Village Voice Media for its Backpage.com site, which they claim profits from human trafficking-related ads. Last month, 19 US Senators sent a letter to the Village Voice, calling for them to stop accepting such ads.

This is just the latest outbreak of concern and outrage over Google’s ability and desire to keep ads that violate its policies off of AdWords. As the lawmakers mentioned, Google agreed to pay $500 million over illegal pharmaceutical ads last year. It’s also visibly struggled with mortgage scam ads, gambling ads, ads for counterfeit goods, and those that violate local trademark laws, leading many to accuse Google of being lax because it profits financially when these ads are displayed, rather than blocked. Google, for its part, says its business depends on being able to create a trusted environment on its pages, so it has every interest in nixing bad ads.

Stone declines to query Page about privacy, antitrust and Google’s myriad problems with regulators and governments around the world. In his answers about a range of issues, Page is confident and seemingly reflective. However his responses suggest Page still regards Google as the cool tech company that was generally beloved by all but its competitors.

Levy on the other hand points out the ways in which that image no longer applies. While Levy celebrates Page’s “focus” and “impatience,” he also identifies Google’s very real legal and “political” vulnerabilities today:

Google was once widely viewed as a feisty startup, an underdog that was on the side of the people; now people increasingly see it as a mighty and distant power that knows too much about them.

This shift in perception is dangerous to Google. It provides cover to politicians and regulators (many of whom are being lobbied furiously by Google’s competitors) who want to hobble a company that seems to have a troubling amount of power. The constant scrutiny of the DOJ and the FTC have already hurt Google considerably: when considering acquisitions, there’s not only the possibility that government will block the move — there’s the certainty that the long approval process will lower the value of the purchase.

One of the more interesting exchanges in the Brad Stone article is the discussion of Steve Jobs’ rage against Google for “stealing” the look and feel of Android. Page argues that it was all an act:

I think the Android differences were actually for show . . . I think that served their interests. For a lot of companies, it’s useful for them to feel like they have an obvious competitor and to rally around that. I personally believe that it’s better to shoot higher. You don’t want to be looking at your competitors. You want to be looking at what’s possible and how to make the world better.

This is a curious response and probably inaccurate given the myriad other accounts of Jobs’ anger toward Google (he ousted Eric Schmidt from the Apple board, for example). It’s unclear whether Page’s remarks are spin, a rationalization or whether Page genuinely believes what he’s saying.

And just as Jobs seemed to be fixated on Android, Page seems equally fixated on Facebook. Though he says, “You don’t want to be looking at your competitors” he takes a couple of shots at Facebook in the Bloomberg Story:

I mean, our friends at Facebook have imported many, many, many Gmail addresses and exported zero addresses. And they claim that users don’t own that data, which is a totally specious claim. It’s completely unreasonable.

The Facebook fixation and related product changes (i.e., privacy policy changes, SPYW) that aim to capture and deliver against the kind of personal data that Facebook possesses may ultimately damage Google more than they help the company. That will only be revealed in time.

Both articles suggest that Page is doing well from an internal, management perspective and generally well regarded as a CEO. He’s even characterized as “charming.”

One potential antidote to some of the image problems that Levy identifies is a more public Page. Perhaps he just needs to bring a little of that personal charm more out in the open. The Bloomberg article may signal that he’s going to start doing so.

Postscript: A Google spokesperson emphasized to me that the Bloomberg/BusinessWeek article is an “excerpt” from a “forthcoming magazine story,” which presumably will explore antitrust and privacy issues — major issues for Google today — in some depth.