A complicated courtship

In early April, two articles appeared in leading European newspapers — “Fear of Google” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and “Google, or the Road to Servitude” in Le Monde — criticizing the consolidationof commercial and cultural power in the hands of Google and other large Internet companies. Shortlyafterward, Eric Schmidt offered a rebuttal, in the form of an open letter to Europe published in FAZ. “On a continent in search of economic hope, the Internet represents the main motor of econo...