Earlier this month the federal government alleged that Google is a monopolist, reaping illegal monopoly profits, which strikes me as likely correct, even if not helpful to journalism. Even more recently, Google, undeterred, took the news industry to the cleaners in a battle in the California legislature in Sacramento.
This week I want to tell you what happened, and to try to draw some lessons for future news industry forays into the brutal world of what is politely referred to as “public policy,” but more colloquially as lobbying.
