News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson sees Google as a dangerous global threat.
Thomson called Google a "platform for piracy and the spread of malicious networks." According to Thomson, Google's power "increases with each passing day," Thomson said in a letter to the European's competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia.
Earlier this month, the EU commission relaunched their half-assed and dragging four-year anti-trust investigation into Google's search and advertising arms. Alumuia said the commission was essentially back to zero and had to start over, after receiving negative responses to a proposed settlement this spring.
Thomson has other, more powerful Google detractors behind him. Germany, France, Microsoft, and big publisher Axel Springer AG have unified and come out swinging against what they characterize as Google's dominance in Europe, according to the Guardian.
Google does indeed dominate Europe, at least in the realm of search engines, commanding a healthy and satisfying 90 percent of the search market there, leaving Microsoft's Bing in the dust.
Thomson is Fox's new chief executive. And it looks like he's wasted little time in acting on the media giant's pet peeves. Like Google.
"The Internet should be a canvas for freedom of expression and for high-quality content of enduring value. Undermining the basic business model of professional content creators will lead to a less informed, more vexatious level of dialogue in our society," Thomson scribed
In fact, Thomson's letter went beyond calling Google pirates. He finished with, "Your decision to reconsider Google's settlement offer comes at a crucial moment in the history of the free flow of information and of a healthy media in Europe and beyond."
C'est la vie.