A senior VP at Google has released a detailed rebuttal to an attack on its business practices by Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.
In her Dear Rupert letter, Rachel Whetstone said that Google is on the side of publishers “which used to be controlled by a relatively small number of media organisations”. Ouch.
Google, she said, also invests in training journalists in its Google for Media programme.
She claimed that far for being a platform for piracy, as Murdoch alleged, Google had done more than practically anyone else to tackle online piracy, by removing 222 million web pages from Google Search due to copyright infringement last year.
She said Google is not the gatekeeper to the web, and has plenty of competition from other companies including Amazon, Kayak, Expedia and Yelp.
She revealed that Google changed its search algorithms 500 times a year. She defended the Android operating system.
She denied that Google is commoditising the ability of specialist publishers to generate advertising revenue.
She rebutted News Corp’s claim that “the shining vision of Google’s founders has been replaced by a cynical management”.
She has a lot more to say too.
