The meeting with Google yesterday afternoon went better than expected.
Attached the Minutes in German (BVPA) Protokoll_Treffen_Google_Berlin_2017-10-05
At the end, we decided to go for the positive press release. HERE in German - A follow-up meeting has been scheduled for February.
To summarize:
They clearly stated that they will not return to the previous version of Google Images.
They presented us two pre-product developments of Google Images and asked us whether it meets our expectations.
I. "Actionable images" : thumbnail images on page 1 get a small sticker (badge) indicating to which kind of website they lead if you click on them. Example: Image of a birthday cake, sticker is "recipe", leads to a website with cakes recipes, or local pastry selling cakes.
Our objections:
- We are not concerned about the products on the images but about the images as product.
- Actionable images may be of interest for consumers and for webmasters but how do they solve any of our concerns (attached)
II. Showing the metadata on page 2
It followed an interresting conversation on metadata: which metadata is worth showing? Are there any privacy concerns? What are the downsides of metadata? Would it be conceivable to include a link to the source website of the image in the metadata displayed? How does this affect the rate image piracy, or not?
III. Where they (surprisingly) showed openess
On displaying a smaller size of the picture in the viewer on page 2
On - using the badge - directing to the licensing source of the picture (in a similar way at what the copyright hub is proposing to do! )
They said they "will look at it".
Be it tactic or genuine ignorance, they seem to be unaware of many issues which make our daily bread and, more crucially, which have been mentioned again and again in the many legal complaints against them: standardisation of metadata, usefulness of traffic for websites, piracy rate. Constant focus on the alleged needs of the "Consumer" and their "Access" to Content has made them oblivious and ignorant about the the Providers of this Content.
Relevant to CEPIC is the coordination with what is going on in France. It appears that le Figoro wants to sue and Luca Forlin - EMEA Partnerships for News, Publishing and Search showed concerns about this.
Sylvie Fodor wrote following blog: Will Google Become good to image providers?
(Based on internal email)