Hampton explained on the European Public Policy Blog, "Until now, our small policy team in Brussels worked from temporary abodes.  From now on, you can find us at Chausse d’Etterbeek 180 1040 Bruxelles, right in the heart of the European quarter."

A satellite view of the address makes it look like a very nice, green spot – exactly the sort of place you might expect Google to set up camp.  Unfortunately, Street View’s not available in the area to allow for a closer inspection.

Details about price, square footage, and other relevant stuff are also lacking (although Hampton promised that bright, Google-y furniture is on hand, along with a number of game consoles).

Anyway, it would appear that this move signals a real intent on Google’s part to become and stay involved in European politics.  Hampton wrote, "We hope to make our new Brussels Googleplex a periscope for policymakers peering into the future of the Internet."

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“Keio University became the latest partner to join Google Books Library Project, and our first library partner in Japan,” states Laura DeBonis, Director of Google’s Book Search Library Partnerships.  “Working together, Google and the Keio University Library will digitize at least 120,000 public domain books . . . so that readers around the world can view, browse, read, and even download public domain materials by simply searching online at books.google.co.jp.”

DeBonis then notes that would-be users “can also search these books by typing your search term in Japanese on books.google.com.”

This is all part of Google’s effort “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” – many other recent Library Project partnerships have also involved countries in which English is not the dominant language.  (See examples in Belgium, Switzerland, and India, if you’re interested.)

Professor S. Sugiyama, Director of the Keio University Library, also emphasized global matters with his comment on the Inside Google Book Search Blog.  “The Google project allows us to make our collections visible worldwide, allowing us to contribute to research and education on a global scale,” he wrote.

Professor Sugiyama continues, “Our university was founded in 1858 by Yukichi Fukuzawa, who was well known for his commitment to bringing information and media forward into the modern age.  This makes Keio ideally suited to be the first Japanese library to participate in Google Book Search.”

Hat tip to Bloomberg’s Ari Levy.

Google Fights Back With Copiepresse Appeal

Google doesn’t lose in court very often, but they took what for them equated to a humbling beating from Copiepresse last year. Copiepresse won a judgment against Google for indexing news content from websites it represents.

That decision included forcing Google to post the judgment for five days on its Belgian portal. The company did so, in a small font size, and their subsequent posts on their official blog made it clear they weren’t happy about this.

Google and Copiepresse subsequently reached a partial settlement of their differences. But a complete resolution will have to wait for an appeals process to take place.

A Bloomberg report about the case found from Google that an appeal had been filed ten days ago. This won’t interrupt their ongoing negotiations with Copiepresse, however.

Google believes its use of small excerpts of news content in Google News complies with copyright laws. A Belgian court disagreed, finding “no exception” in their laws for this, the report said.

As for that geographical sequence, I simply thought a little perspective might be needed before diving into this article; our guide, you’ll see, is much more familiar with both the area and the subject at hand.

Emmanuel Begerem, a Consumer Support Associate at Google, writes, “As an alumnus of Ghent University, I am thrilled that the university has decided to open its historic and special collections to the world.  Ghent University has always striven for innovation and it hit a new milestone today by becoming the first Dutch-language library to join the Library Project.”

And once again, some perspective might be needed, so Begerem explains, “This joint project will allow researchers, students and users from all around the world to search, browse and read the incredible collection of public domain books the university has to offer.”

That “all around the world” descriptor also applies to where the project is finding its sources; in the past six days, Google has made book-related deals in Switzerland and India, in addition to the new partnership in Belgium.  Of course, unless you’re fluent in those countries’ native languages, or feel like suffering through a questionable translation, you’re out of luck, but the Google Library Project is still doing some undeniably impressive things.

An AP report out of the Belgian capital said the two sides are enjoying “constructive dialogue” following their contentious courtroom battle. Copiepresse accused Google of infringing on the rights of the papers it manages.

Rather than simply placing a relevant robots.txt file on the web servers for the papers in question, Copiepresse took Google to court. Copiepresse’s win forced Google to post a notice about it on their Belgian home page for five days.

The two sides have made a statement about the recent change. They jointly said in the report that Google could reference Copiepresse-managed content. However, Google will not be archiving copies of stories.

“The Belgian French and German-language daily press publishers and Google Inc. intend to use a quiet period in the court dispute to continue their efforts to identify tangible ways to collaborate in the long term,” they said in the report.

Copiepresse charges people to access older articles, a practice used in the US by papers like the New York Times. The use of the no-archive meta tag will keep Google from caching articles appearing on Copiepresse news websites.

What is your current position and the name of the company you work for?

I work as a Business Analyst / Project Manager for Web projects at the European Headquarters of a major automotive company, based in Brussels, Belgium – Europe. While my official title doesn’t include (yet) the term “Web Analytics”, people refer to me as the “Web Analytics specialist” or sometimes as “Mister WebTrends” (honestly I prefer the first one (smiling)).

Web Analytics represent 60% of my tasks: I mainly work on the Sales & Marketing websites of our two brands – this represents more than 50 sites over 25 European countries. However the demand of “Web Analytics” is growing in other business areas such as After Sales, Corporate, Human Resources, so a very wide scope.

The other 40% are typical Project management, business analyst duties.

How long have you been working in this field?

Almost 3 years ago. I joined in July 2004 as Business analyst. In the first year, Web Analytics only represented 25% of my tasks.

Tell me about your work, education prior to making a switch to web analytics

I’ve studied at the University from Louvain in Belgium. I’ve done a master (5 years), in IT Engineering (or Engineer in Computer Sciences as it is called here in Belgium).

I started to work in 1998 for an IT consulting company in Belgium. I worked as an IT Consultant for 6 years, on Web related projects; mainly as a business analyst / project coordinator (I did some developments in the first years too).

Why did you decided to switch to Web Analytics?

Well, I didn’t really decide to switch to Web Analytics. It just happened. My company was looking for a business analyst for Sales & Marketing web projects. At beginning my job was very typical of a business analyst role: collect business requirements, define functional specifications, follow-up the development,… However at the same time, my company was also insourcing Web Analytics services (i.e. WebTrends 7) originally hosted by an external agency. Page tagging had just been implemented and it needed someone to create and manage reports for the business. I was offered the job and I accepted it because it was something new for me.

At that time I had no idea of what was really behind Web Analytics and that it would be so interesting. And that it would grow as it did (and still does). It literally changed my (professional) life as it opened me an unexpected career path. I’ve never regretted my choice, that’s for sure.

I was at the right time at the right place because I barely knew what was Web Analytics – for me it was just about measuring site traffic

Two years ago in Europe, you would hardly find an offer for a Web Analyst or WA related jobs. And even today, they’re not that many (except in few countries such as UK or Germany). But things are changing.

What, if any, education or work experience helped you in making this transition?

First, my experience as “business analyst”. Even if I’m from a technical background, I’ve always liked to work closely with the business side – understanding their context, their challenges, their problems and trying to find solutions to these. And you really need to understand your business if you want to work as a Web analyst.

Also, working on Web related projects really helped me to have a good understanding on the technical aspect of the Internet, websites & web applications. I really think that it is also very important. While a good web analyst doesn’t need to know all the technical details, some basics are mandatory otherwise he/she’ll struggle at some point when it comes really understand what you’re measuring and how to interpret your results.

What are you responsibilities in your current job? Describe your typical workday.

I’ve (too) many responsibilities (smiling)

These include:

- Gather business reporting requirements, define KPI’s

- Coordinate implementation of WebTrends tags in the Content Management system and web applications

- Set-up WebTrends reports & KPI dashboards

- Define tagging guidelines & rules for external suppliers & agencies

- Analyse results & support/coach business “web” analyst

- Technology & best practices survey

- Vendors coordination

- Manage/coach new Web analyst

- Follow-up SEO related project & reporting

As I work in a Pan-European context, there’s a lot to do. So it is very difficult to describe a typical workday. It is very varied and every day is a mix of all these things.

A new junior Web analyst is taking over the “day-to-day” work while I will focus more on the “strategy” and “business management” work.

What education is lacking, education or experience that would have helped in your current job?

Some “marketing” experience would have certainly helped – especially when I started focusing more on the “business”/”analysis” part of the job. Working closely with the business users and showing strong interest in their work helped me to close the gap.

What web analytics/online-marketing books have you read and/or own?

My library is a bit limited but I’ve the following books: “Call To Action: Secret Formulas to improve your online results” from Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg, Eric T. Peterson’s “Big Book of KPI’s” and “Web Measurement Hacks”.

Which book(s) have you helped in your new job or finding new job?

Without hesitation: Eric T. Peterson’s “Measurement hacks” is a goldmine! It definitely helped me in discovering what was really beyond Web Analytics and all their potential. It also gave me many ideas to apply or test.

I’m really thankful to the persons who offered me the book (smiling)

What were the major challenges you faced or are facing in this industry?

Competition on the automotive market is very high. Especially in Europe, where it (the automotive market) is saturated. This means that to get more shares, you have to conquest new customers from your competition. The on-line channel is playing a more and more important role in the decision-making. Automotive sites have changed from an information research library to a multimedia and interactive experience. Therefore it is really important to provide the best online experience to our visitors. That’s where Web Analytics plays a strategic and important role.

Working in a Pan-European context makes the work more complex – as you’ve to tackle many obstacles either technical or functional – but also there’re so many things to do and learn. It’s great and challenging environment for Web Analytics.

All in all that’s what makes my job so exciting!

How do you make sure you are learning and growing in this field?

First I keep reading various blogs from WA experts – including your blog – or books. I try to attend seminars whenever possible – for the first time I’ll be at the Emetrics Summit in London. This helps me keeping myself up-to-date with the technology and most important with the best practices. I try to apply them whenever possible. I like to test new things and put new ideas in practice.

The WA forum is also a great place. Finally discussing with our Web Analytics agency is also very helpful.

Do you have blog? If yes, what kind of article do you write?

No. I don’t really have the time between my work, my lovely wife and my 1-year little boy. And there’re already many blogs to read out there. What more could I tell to this world? (smiling)

What is your advice to the aspiring web analysts?

To quote one of my company’s values: “Patience and perseverance”. It will take time and experience to get to the first results, to evangelise your management and get some recognition.

When you read books or articles on Web Analytics, it easy to misinterpret Web Analytics as a “magic” solution that will solve all business problem in a quick and easy way. Well, it is not. Especially when this is something new in the company culture. It is even truer in Europe where Web Analytics is still at the early stage (but it is growing faster and faster). So they really need to start small but think big, going step by step – exactly as the Web Analytics process. Begin with the basics and demonstrate their values and then go on to the next step with more elaborated application.

If you’re patient and perseverant, you’ll get rewarded and it will open you a great, challenging and promising career path.

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Allowing users to share and rate news on the site, it has a simple interface, much like the Digg of old. It also has Windows Live integration, with Alerts, add to Live.com and with a BlogIt! option sending posts straight to Windows Live Spaces.

The site has reportedly received 500,000 and 800,000 users visting the site in the 1st and 2nd months respectively. Articles have got up to 10,000 votes and 1,000 comments. The stats show that this is not a poor imitation of Digg though.

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Google in the official Googleblog has no problems if that is their desire.

Google has a clear policy of respecting the wishes of content owners. If a newspaper does not want to be part of Google News, we remove their content from our index-all the newspaper has to do is ask. There is no need for legal action and all the associated costs.

However the ‘walled gardens’ business model has not yet proved its long-term survivability for newspapers. Newspapers are with difficulty finding how best to operate in the open world of the Internet. Professional journalists do not always get it right as Corante points out in "The herd misses opportunities".

The mainstream media believes that "user-generated content" has to come through their sites, their walled gardens of tightly controlled participation, so they miss the vastly larger opportunity that exists on the Internet as a whole.

It is interesting to speculate on how the traditional media will learn to live most profitably with that larger opportunity.

Related:
Google Loses In Belgium Newspaper Case – review by Danny Sullivan
Walled Gardens – The Walls Keep Tumbling Down – in the Mobile Web

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About the Author

Barry Welford, President of SMM Strategic Marketing Montreal works with business owners and senior management on Internet Marketing strategy and action plans to grow their companies. He is a moderator at the Cre8asite Forums and writes on current issues on the Internet and on the Mobile Web in three blogs, BPWrap, StayGoLinks and The Other Bloke’s Blog.

The per diem penalty for noncompliance was at least dropped to more reasonable levels. In the initial ruling, Google would have to pay 1 million euros for every day it did not comply with the ruling. The new judgment dropped that fee to 25,000 euros daily.

Google also said the company was "very pleased that the judge agreed Google should be given notice of articles and other material that content owners want removed."

The company has maintained in other arenas, when copyright concerns have been broached, that by showing only snippets of copyrighted text and linking out to original sources, no copyright laws have been violated. The Belgian court was the first to completely disagree.

That doesn’t mean Google’s stopped arguing their case. From Google’s statement:

We believe search engines are of real benefit to publishers because they drive valuable traffic to their websites.

If publishers do not want their websites to appear in search results, technical standards like robots.txt and metatags enable them automatically to prevent the indexation of their content.

These Internet standards are nearly universally accepted and are honored by all reputable search engines. In addition, Google has a clear policy of respecting the wishes of content owners.

If a newspaper does not want to be part of Google News, we remove their content from our index—all the newspaper has to do is ask. There is no need for legal action and all the associated costs.

– Rachel Whetstone, European Director of Communications and Public Affairs, Google, Inc.

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In a court ruling early Tuesday, a judge ruled in favor of Belgian newspapers in their dispute with Google, citing that the Internet company was guilty of copyright infringement.

The Brussels court ruled in favor of Copiepresse, a consortium that represents the eighteen newspapers that brought complaints against Google.

The group was upset that articles from its publications were appearing in the archives of Google News, some of which the newspapers offer as part of a subscription service only.

Google vowed to immediately appeal the decision, claiming that the articles appearing on its news site do not violate any type of copyright law.

“We believe that Google News is entirely legal,” the company said in a statement. “We only ever show the headlines and a few snippets of text and small thumbnail images. If people want to read the entire story they have to click through to the newspaper’s Web site.”

Even though the courts sided with the content owners in this case, it also ruled that it would be up to copyright owners to contact Google by e-mail to address any time of dispute concerning articles appearing on Google News. Google would then have 24 hours to withdraw the content or face a daily fine of $1,295 (1,000 euros).

And speaking of fines, the court imposed a retroactive fine of $32,390 (25,000 euros) for each day Google did not comply with Copiepresse’s request to remove the Belgian content from the site.

This figure is much less than was indicated in an earlier judgment, which could have potentially forced Google to cough up $1.3 million (1 million euros) a day.

On a personal note, I’d like to congratulate the Belgian newspapers on their resounding legal victory.

For their efforts, they’ve won the fabulous prize of receiving even less traffic to their sites.

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