An open letter to Eric Schmidt from Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer

http://futureofthebook.org/blog/2014/04/23/letter-from-mathias-dopfner-ceo-of-axel-springer/

by jamesbritt • 12 years ago

65 35 12 years ago

whoismua2• 12 years ago

"Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel."

Is this a turning point? Sure Google has clout and they're trying to buy as much government protection http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transfo... as possible but the press does this for a living.

psbp• 12 years ago

It's funny that your archaic quote undermines your point.

6cxs2hd6• 12 years ago

Talking about ink isn't funnier than talking about digging under a foundation ("undermine"). I think we all know what both of you mean, with your non-literal, colorful expressions. :)

GP makes a good point. Google is a de facto monopoly, no less than Microsoft was. Even if you stipulate that Google got there through nicer tactics than Microsoft, the end result is a similar huge concentration of power. We can laugh at old school publishers feeling disoriented. We can feel comfortable that Google won't use their power for "evil". Maybe that's a safe assumption for the near future.

I think ultimately the most reassuring thing isn't Google's intentions, but the inevitability that they too will hand the reins to someone new. Maybe Amazon. Maybe a company that most of us have never heard of yet. (And during that transition the world will become more uncertain and more interesting again, for awhile.) But meanwhile Google has a huge amount of power, and healthy skepticism is fair.

lampe3• 12 years ago

Axel springer is buying a lot of daily and weekly newspaper in germany sry but we should fear axel springer too...

another view on that subject: http://www.jungewelt.de/2014/04-17/026.php?sstr=d%F6pfner

apsec112• 12 years ago

Mr. Doepfner seems to fear Google's power. As a newspaper publisher, that is reasonable. But in a wider societal context, as he seems to be implying, it is nonsense. Google has so little political influence that the city council won't let them build a twenty-foot bridge over a creek between two Google office buildings (http://rationalconspiracy.com/2014/04/17/money-doesnt-matter...).

smacktoward• 12 years ago

Maybe at the local level that's true, but at the Federal level, this is changing. Google used to be very politically uninvolved, but they did a 180 on that a few years back and started aggressively building a strong lobbying arm a few years back [1], hiring a high-profile ex-Congresswoman, Susan Molinari, to head it up [2]. This operation has grown to the point where in 2013 Google hit #8 on the list of corporations that spend the most lobbying Congress [3], with lobbying outlays greater than those of Comcast and Lockheed.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transfo...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/business/susan-molinari-ad...

[3] http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/4/4394234/google-eight-bigges...

Datsundere• 12 years ago

Seems like a right path to take down comcast.

sounds2• 12 years ago

If you had as much money, would you not also spend some of it on lobbying?

I believe Google's actions were defensive in nature. I despise our politicians who will take "contributions" and ignore the people who elected them; still, if I had that much money I'd probably be lobbying too.

caycep• 12 years ago

Wasn't this part of a movie, Baader Meinhof Complex or something?

phaer• 12 years ago

You mean the Axel Springer company? Yes, and not only a movie. One of their businesses is the publication of germanys "BILD" newspaper which became a bit more moderate in recent decades but was among the main enemies of the left-wing students movement during the 60ies and 70ies from which the terrorist RAF, the subject of the movie, spawned.

hagbardgroup• 12 years ago

It's going to be a lot harder to maintain an open, global internet without the moral legitimacy that derives from liberalism. If the internet is just going to be a means to make states and criminals more capable of predating upon ordinary people, then ordinary people will abandon it in a panic (or submit to it meekly, and only use it carefully).

The thought that this can be reversed with mere lobbying is a little ridiculous. We have to build more secure computing and telecom infrastructure, or we will see a massive reversal in behavior. It does not matter how many 'internet of things' advertisements that CISCO buys if the general social opinion is that adopting the technology will make you vulnerable to governmental and criminal predation.

This letter is an example of some of the backlash that we can expect as this patina of moral legitimacy washes off. A congressional committee (like the Church committee) will not be sufficient to restore international trust, and neither would a new president making promises. Google's business model rests on trust, which is always harder to earn back than it is to gain in the first place.

fidotron• 12 years ago

The irony of this realisation that Google have changed the game completely is that it is occurring long after the horse has bolted, and so much so that it may not be entirely valid to target Google with so much venom. The reality is the SV bubble has created a way of valuing things (privacy, IP, money itself) that is not in keeping with the old world at all (being much of western Europe, NYC, LA etc.) and is just moving on regardless of their concerns, many of which I do happen to share.

Arguing the rights or wrongs of this is already too late, and the question to be asked is given the changes in the way things are valued how are you going to justify your existence in future? The very fact Google are struggling to create new revenue streams that rival their ad one shows how difficult this new game is to play, even for those that created it, and even for those apparently so dominant.

This isn't unique to SV as the other great growth area on the planet, China, has its own interesting take which bunnie called gongkai: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?cat=20

You can only conclude that there is something holding back the old world.

If it were not obvious, regulation is going to achieve SFA, and the only way to change the system is going to be to play it in such a way you get to pick the rules. That used to be quietly whispering in the ears of authority, but that is clearly no longer as effective as Mr Döpfner would like.

sounds2• 12 years ago

Try not to use acronyms; it's jarring to have to pause, go look up "Sweet Fuck All," and resume.

Thanks though, for pointing out that Google is choosing to pour their efforts into finding new areas of profit outside search. Obviously they could have pursued regulatory capture instead, but so far it seems they're staying white hat.

mcintyre1994• 12 years ago

It's interesting that he admits his company rely on Google's search traffic (while criticising them for showing any of their content, but I digress) - and criticises them for algorithmic changes that don't benefit his company (fair enough), then decries the idea that competitors pay for some new advertising spot. So the attitude here is against paying?

But later he looks at Google's free services and claims that they're not free since they use a behavioral currency (fair enough, they collect lots of data of course) - and maybe it would be "better and cheaper" to use normal money. So, we should be paying for services? Hmm. Not a completely equal comparison, maybe they should be at the top of Google for whatever terms.. but it seems odd to preach that I should pay for convenient services and they shouldn't for the majority of their traffic.

I do agree with a lot of what he says, but I use Google services and find them helpful.

Perhaps the fundamental issue here is that this is a big media company and they want transparency into Google's algorithms. What's a media company going to do with that? My guess is optimise their pages to abuse the algorithms and dominate the search rankings. Great for them, judging by most media outlets, terrible for the search user. I think I'd rather Google have a secret algorithm than have my search results dominated by whoever can abuse a known algorithm the most - especially because media companies I'd rather not hear from (not necessarily Axel Springer) and scammers are among those with the means to do so.

monochr• 12 years ago

It's always funny when you see old masters of the universe become Marxists when someone is about to eat their lunch. Doubly so when it is a business that has spent the better part of two centuries appropriating the public space into a private one through ever increasing copyrights. Now they run across someone who does it better than they could ever dream of. And all of a sudden the forms of IP that Google uses to corner the market from publishers are in huge need of public debate. One these people will cover in a neutral and even handed way in their own publications. But what's not up for debate are the bits of IP like they paywalling publicly funded research for a century or more.

I'll take out my magnifying glass to look for my violin.

rolux4• 12 years ago

Very good point.

Döpfner's position is truly schizophrenic. He admires Google's success as a business, states that his news sites depend on the traffic Google provides (for free), but still wants the European Commission to regulate the fairness of their search results, and has lobbied the German Government to make Google pay for links to his content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leistungsschutzrecht). With BILD, the flagship product of his publishing house, he is in charge of the most hateful, sensationalist and ignorant mainstream news outlet in Germany, however, he claims to be concerned about the future of journalism. He likens Google's position to former state monopolists Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Post, yet his company has never contributed to the criticism of the monopoly power of those German companies. And finally, he's worried about privacy, while violating people's privacy has been, for decades, BILD's core journalistic principle.

Döpfner's publishing house striving to become Europe's leading digital media company is a hilarious, sad and frightening thing to imagine.

RighteousFervor• 12 years ago

There will be people who will read this, agree with every word, and still make excuses so they can use Google everyday and not change.

sentenza• 12 years ago

Here is some context on the relationship between Mathias Döpfner, Axel Springer and Google.

Axel Springer Verlag successfully lobbied the German government to write a law that creates a "Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger", which extends German copyright to include "whatever publishers do". This new copyright extension in essence makes it possible for a publisher to extract money from people that link to their content (which they previously put on the internet for everybody to see!).

Here in Germany, it is considered a "lex Google", since they didn't really manage to hide that the whole purpose of this law is to make Google pay Axel Springer money for linking to Springer content in Google News.

Do you think this is weird, counterintuitive and generally damaging to the Internet? That's the context needed to understand things coming out of Döpfners mouth/keyboard.

blumentopf• 12 years ago

Döpfner is trying to pivot the Axel Springer publishing house into a digital media company but their efforts are laughable. They sold some of their newspapers and magazines and are investing the money in dotcoms, but compared to Google or even Yahoo they're just small fish. They're clueless about technology so they resort to whining about the oh-so-evil Google.

For a quick laugh, watch this video of a tourist trip to Silicon Valley they did last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug4Rcip9SHg

auggierose• 12 years ago

This is just too good. Thank you very much for the link. I am wondering how many of those guys have anything close to a CS or math degree.

rolux4• 12 years ago

Thanks for providing that link.

In addition, especially if you don't speak German, I'd strongly recommend to consult the English Wikipedia article about Bild, the Springer publishing house's flagship tabloid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild, some quotes below). For anyone familiar with their history, the idea that all of a sudden it's "journalism" that their CEO sets out to defend must sound outright absurd.

"Bild has been described as 'notorious for its mix of gossip, inflammatory language, and sensationalism' and as having a huge influence on German politicians."

"According to The Guardian, for 28 years from 1984 to 2012, Bild had topless girls featuring on its first page; the paper published more than 5,000 topless pictures."

"It is argued Bild's thirst for sensationalism results in the terrorizing of prominent celebrities and stories are frequently based on the most dubious evidence. The journalistic standards of Bild, or the lack thereof, are the subject of frequent criticism by German intellectuals and media observers."

"In 1977 investigative journalist Günter Wallraff worked for four months as an editor for the Bild tabloid in Hanover, giving himself the pseudonym of 'Hans Esser'. In his books Der Aufmacher ('Lead Story') and Zeugen der Anklage ('Witnesses for the Prosecution') he portrays his experiences on the editorial staff of the paper and the journalism which he encountered there. The staff commonly displayed contempt for humanity, a lack of respect for the privacy of ordinary people and widespread conduct of unethical research and editing techniques."

mturmon2• 12 years ago

I understand about 3 words of German and I found that video fascinating. Like Russians from 1970 touring a Western supermarket or something.

wtmcc• 12 years ago

Original link to English translation http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/mathias-doepf...

Original link to German source http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/mathias-doepfne...

alexatkeplar2• 12 years ago

If Mathias Döpfner is so worried about Google, then running Google Analytics across all his newspaper sites (Bild, Welt etc) probably isn't the smartest move.

rolux4• 12 years ago

Can you provide some evidence that he does that?

I'm pretty certain that Döpfner composed his critique of privacy violations (with a strange emphasis on cookies) while being logged in to Google+, Facebook and whatnot -- but using Google analytics for his online properties would put him on a completely different level of hypocrisy.

EDIT: You're correct. Here's the link: http://www.axelspringer.de/artikel/Hinweise-zum-Datenschutz_...

alexatkeplar2• 12 years ago

I checked a few of Axel Springer's domains before posting that.

niels_olson• 12 years ago

Welcome to the bizarre thought that percolates through the ultra-rich. I suspect the ongoing leveling process of the internet will make more of this visible over time. "Let them eat cake."

zimbatm• 12 years ago

It's hard for journals to compete on content aggregation now that there are automated services where users can do the job themselves (hello HN).

One thing that was the Internet doesn't do well is investigation. Maybe journals should try to look into ways of getting funding for specific affairs. Get subscribers to pay for specific topics like the NSA leaks. I know I would be ready to pay for that.

mhd• 12 years ago

I've worked with publishing houses, and boy, if there's an industry that's more conservative, I don't even want to know...

And no, this was in the US/UK. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the Germans would be even worse, considering that they're equally consolidated, even more snooty (even harder boundaries between genre and "serious" literature) and then there's the whole fixed book price deal...

darklajid• 12 years ago

Please. Don't allow people from that company a voice here. That abomination is mostly (in)famous for a tabloid with headlines that would ALWAYS be flagged on this site. And for bare-breasted girls on page three. And random football/soccer news.

This is 4chan, printed. I haven't encountered anything worse, ever. I cannot imagine that the person in charge of this company can write a single straight (and true) sentence.

(Disclaimer: That company is dangerously big. Funnily enough it might be the printed Google for Germany. They influence the media in gazillion ways. There ARE some more toned down parts of Axel Springer, but as a whole it's deapicable)

An open letter to Eric Schmidt from Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer

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