Inside Google

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Congressional committee will review the pros and cons of a class-action settlement that would give Google Inc. the digital rights
to millions of copyrighted books that are no long being published.

Thursday’s
scheduled testimony before the House of Representatives’ Judiciary
Committee is expected to touch upon many of the same issues that
already have been covered in volumes of briefs filed with U.S. District
Judge Denny Chin in the past few weeks.

Chin is expected to approve or reject Google’s proposed settlement with U.S. authors and publishers before the end of the year.

Google
rivals Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are among the
most prominent members of an alliance that contends the settlement will
create an illegal monopoly that will drive up the price of digital
books and make Google’s search engine even more influential.

The
antitrust concerns prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to open an
investigation into whether the settlement will undermine competition.
The Justice Department is scheduled to report some of its preliminary
filings to Chin by Sept. 18.

Other critics, including consumer
watchdog groups and some library associations, are worried the deal
will open a window on what kinds of books people are reading.

Mountain
View-based Google and a long list of supporters that include
librarians, authors, publishers, technology groups, disabled rights
activists and economics professors argue the settlement would foster
more competition in the rapidly growing digital books market by making
it easier to buy hard-to-find titles.

Google is trying to ease
the privacy concerns by drawing up a separate policy governing what it
can do with the information gathered from people who peruse an index
that will include more than 10 million digital books.

The
antitrust concerns prompted the Justice Department to open an
investigation into whether the settlement will undermine competition.
The Justice Department is scheduled to report some of its preliminary
filings to Chin by Sept. 18.

Chin has scheduled an Oct. 7 hearing in New York federal court to review the findings.

On The Net: http://judiciary.house.gov/.