Google

Abuse of dominance. Google/Android

The Italian Antitrust Authority (AGCM) has shown renewed attention in combating abuses of dominance, heavily sanctioning Google (€102 million) for hindering access on Android Auto (AA - owned by Google) to an application (JuicePass) developed by Enel and aimed at searching/booking electric charging stations for cars.

The denial of interoperability between JuicePass and AA meant that when the user/driver searched for charging stations on AA in order to locate and reserve one, those of JuicePass did not appear. Google, in this way, favored its own Google Maps app (and its advertising clients, competitors of Enel), which could be used on Android Auto, allowing functional services for charging electric vehicles in competition with JuicePass.

As for the threshold of dominance, we recall that Android, and therefore AA, is used by about 75% of users, a share that certainly makes it difficult to refute Google's dominance in this market. This case, again, shows the necessary caution for the requirements of antitrust law that must guide dominant companies in the definition of their commercial policies.

YouTube Threatened with Big Copyright Lawsuit

Global Music Rights is a performing rights company that competes with other collecting societies such as ASCAP and BMI. Its clients include Pharrell Williams, John Lennon, The Eagles and Smokey Robison.

It claims that more than 20.000 videos are not licensed. Royalties that could amount to hundred of millions of dollars.

CEO Irving Azoff says that Google Inc. the owner of YouTube has shown no willing to cooperate and threatened to sue the company for copyright infringement.

Google responded by accusing Global Music Rights of attempting to circumvent the DMCA.

Google already settled a claim with Viacom this year by claiming that no money changed hands.

Can a terrorist apply for the Right to be Forgotten?

The right to be informed vs. the right to be forgotten. The latest controversial debate is between those who want to see their name deleted from search engines and those who would like to be informed on biographies of known persons or characters which could be found on web sites like Wikipedia.

Lately Wikimedia Foundation reported a certain number of notifications with which Google informed surfers to have deleted some links to Wikipedia following the exercise of the right to be deleted by certain consumers.

Without revealing the name of the applicants, Google explained how to respect the judgment of the European Court of Justice, which guarantees the right to be forgotten (as a result of which Google has received over 90 thousand applications for removal of applicants requesting the right to be forgotten), at least fifty pages of internet encyclopedias have already undergone this procedure. Forty-six pages belong to Wikipedia: among them appears several times the name of the chess player Guido den Broeder and one concerns Gerry Hutch, an Irish imprisoned in the 80s.

One of these requests came from Renato Vallanzasca a notorious Italian mobster who was a powerful figure in the Milanese underworld during the 1970s. Following numerous robberies, kidnappings, murders, and many years as a fugitive, he is currently serving 4 consecutive life sentences with an additional 290 years in prison

Wikimedia Foundation launched an alarm for the defense of freedom of information. " Accurate search results are disappearing from Europe - said Lila Tretikov, executive director of the

Wikimedia Foundation - without any public explanation, no real evidence, no judicial review and no appeal procedure. The result is that unwanted information simply disappears.

Even Google had shown his opposition to the decision of the European Court by the mouth of David Drummond, chief legal officer of the Californian company: "We do not agree with the judgment, it is a bit like saying that a book can be in a library, but can not be included in its catalog. Obviously, however, we respect the authority of the Court and we do our best to adhere to its decisions. "