Google Inc. is dipping its toe in the mobile browser business, formatting Internet sites for users surfing the wireless Web. But legal experts say the Internet giant may be infringing on copyrights in the process.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based firm has developed software that modifies Web sites for the smaller screens of cell phones. Users who perform a Google search on their handsets and click on resulting links are provided access to stripped-down versions of the sites, which are presumably more efficient to deliver and easier to read.
“If you search for (something) in an ordinary Web browser on your PC, your first result is this complex, graphics-rich page,” Google Software Engineer Roger Skubowius posted on the company’s official blog. “Search that same phrase on Google with your mobile phone, though, and your top result is this lightweight, phone-friendly version of the same page. That’s because now whenever you click on a Google search result through your mobile Web browser, Google automatically translates the page’s layout to make it as easy as possible to read on a small screen.”
The service is Google’s latest move to expand from PCs into wireless. The company has established a portfolio of offerings for mobile users, including a search service and a personalized home page for wireless Web surfers.
And the move places Google nearer-if not directly on-the mobile browser playground. Openwave Systems Inc., Novarra Inc., Opera Software ASA and others have gained traction in the space as consumers begin to use their phones to access information and multimedia content on the Internet. America Online Inc. offers a similar service, optimizing some Web sites that deliver shopping information and local listings.
Google’s effort is also drawing criticism from some who say its service is altering content and removing advertisements, and that the company’s software prevents site operators from providing content that has been optimized for mobile users. The service is actually “crippling sites, not adapting pages,” according to Dave Harper, founder of mobile Internet services provider Wireless Ink.
“With a bit of browser detection, WINKsite (wireless Ink’s site) and others send these visitors to either mobile optimized versions of their sites or even mobile phone-specific services,” Harper wrote in an open letter to Google. “Google mobile Web search intercepts and overrides that detection, context, and delivery. I question your right to do that and without permission to create a derivative work.”
While many Internet site operators have built mobile-friendly versions of their offerings through WAP technology or other means, the vast majority of Web sites are designed specifically for computer screens. Creating a stripped-down version for the smaller displays and limited capabilities of a mobile phone often requires minimizing data-heavy graphics, including ads, developers say, to expedite downloads and create a simplified user experience. Screen-wide banners, Flash-powered images and other bells and whistles must be downsized, simplified or even dropped altogether during the formatting process.
“Of the billions of Web sites indexed by Google, few are structured in a way that makes them easily readable on today’s mobile devices,” a Google representative told RCR Wireless News. “By applying a general set of layout rules to mobile-unfriendly Web sites (for example, making large graphics smaller in size), Google makes pages easier to read on a small screen.”
Google seems to be more aggressive than other developers in weeding out bulky content for wireless use. Opera, which offers a downloadable Web browser allowing mass-market phones to access both WAP and traditional Web sites, said its “Small Screen Rendering” technology strips only images so large that shrinking them would make them unreadable, and Flash content, which is not supported by most mobile phones.
Others question the need to strip away anything other than content that simply can’t be supported on a handset.
“We don’t drop anything” during formatting other than Flash content, said Jayanthi Rangarajan, Novarra’s chief executive officer. “When we asked our legal counsel, they said pretty strongly, `Don’t drop content-ads or whatever.”‘
Indeed, Google’s service may open the door to lawsuits, legal experts say. Not only could content be altered for mobile use, advertisements could be changed or dropped completely. While the need to modify some content is obvious, stripping ads from Web pages could threaten the most successful business model on the Internet.
“Altering content and stripping ads could have legal consequences if the (Web site) owners don’t like what the Web developers are doing,” according to Joy Butler, a Washington-based attorney whose upcoming book on copyright law is due out in August. “No court has addressed whether it’s legally OK for a browser developer to alter (Web sites) for cell phones. As is often the case with changing technologies, the answer will require new interpretations of existing law.”
The question of whether, and how, Internet content can be altered comes down to “fair use”-a legal concept with which Google is very familiar. A U.S. Federal Court last month determined the company had infringed on Perfect 10’s copyrights by displaying thumbnail images from the adult Web site through Google Image Search. The Internet behemoth scored a victory last week when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a writer who claimed Google had violated his copyright by posting excerpts from his Web site in search results.
And a New York-based writers’ association has filed suit against the Google Print project, which seeks to digitize and store content from millions of books. Users could search by topic or with a certain quote and receive snippets from published works in a matter of seconds. Google has launched the service, but suspended plans to scan copyrighted books until November due to the backlash.
Like the Google Print project, the company’s mobile transcoding service underscores the legal ramifications of moving content across platforms, altering copyrighted material in the process.
“It does create an interesting question about whether this is transformative,” said Kraig L. Marini Baker, a Seattle attorney with David Wright Tremaine L.L.P. Baker’s clients include Microsoft Corp., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Clearwire Corp.
“One of the questions (surrounding fair use) is, `How transformative is the new use?”‘ Baker said. “What they’re doing is clearly transforming Internet content to the mobile phone. That actually gives them a little bit of a stronger argument.”
The fair-use argument could be undermined, though, if stripping marketing messages undermines the market value of the original work. And critics fear Google may be looking to insert messages from its own advertisers.
Google declined to say whether it expected any challenges as a result of its new mobile offering.
Most onlookers say legal issues surrounding formatting Internet content for mobile phones will eventually be resolved as Web operators optimize their own sites for handsets, eliminating the need for third-party software that acts as a kind of translator.
“As soon as more Web developers start using mobile stylesheets, it will be a completely different situation,” said Eskil Sivertsen, public relations manager for Opera Software’s mobile business, who noted the company has a working relationship with Google. “Then the designer (will have) full control over how the page looks, and advertisements can be custom-made for mobile screens.”
For the time being, though, some see Google’s aggressive move into wireless as a kind of shot across the bow for the wireless industry. Instead of fretting about the 800-pound gorilla lumbering onto the playground, mobile software operators should focus on building better applications that exploit the advantages of wireless networks.
“One of the things I’ve heard from operators is that any application in the mobile search space shouldn’t just be trying to take the same experience form the Internet and transfer it to mobile,” said Eric McCabe, vice president of marketing at JumpTap Inc., a startup that is working to establish a business model in wireless similar to Google’s AdWords. “It seems like that’s what Google’s approach is.”
The key for operators and developers, then, is to keep the user close to the carrier’s deck with compelling offerings that create both stickiness and revenues. Subscribers won’t need to type in a URL for mobile search if operators can build a service that taps the power of wireless networks.
“The battle should be about the user experience,” said Martin B. Dunsby, senior vice president of Openwave. “The fact that users are trying to go to Google on their phones is the problem.”
