The company likes to present itself as having lofty, utopian aspirations. This really isnt about making money is a mantra. We are doing this for the good of society. ②As Santiago de la Mora, head of Google Books for Europe, puts it: By making it possible to search the millions of books that exist today, we hope to expand the frontiers of human knowledge.
Dan Clancy, the chief architect of Google Books, offers an analogy with the invention of the Gutenberg press - Googles book project, he says, will have a similar democratising effect. He talks of people in far-flung parts being able to access knowledge as never before, of search queries leading them to the one, long out-of-print book they need.
And he does seem genuine in his conviction that this is primarily a philanthropic exercise. Googles core business is search and find, so obviously what helps improve Googles search engine is good for Google, he says. But we have never built a spreadsheet outlining the financial benefits of this, and I have never had to justify the amount I am spending to the companys founders.
It is easy, talking to Clancy and his colleagues, to be swept along by their missionary zeal. But Googles book-scanning project is proving controversial. Several opponents have recently emerged, ranging from rival tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon to small bodies representing authors and publishers across the world. In broad terms, these opponents have levelled two sets of criticisms at Google.
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