Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is facing what promises to be some hard-fought litigation in Germany, over a proposed copyright bill supported by the German newspaper industry that would mean Google would need to pay a portion of advertising revenue to any German newspaper whose articles turned up in search results next to those ads. They believe that it is their work that is attracting the traffic, so they deserve the advertising revenue, and Germany has some of the toughest data privacy laws in Europe. Google obviously sees the issue differently, and believes that this would be a slippery slope that would lead to paying anyone whose work turned up in search results, and would be to the detriment of every Internet user in Germany. The company enters its first round of debates in the German parliament this Thursday.
See more in the following video.