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At one point in time US President John F. Kennedy triumphantly declared “Ich bin ein Berliner!” in a speech to the German people. Now the debate rages on as to whether the president proclaimed he was a Berlin citizen or a donut but that’s for another blog. Today though we learn from TechCrunch Europe that Eric Schmidt from Google may need to head to Deutschland to proclaim that he is one of the good guys as there are calls to ban Google Analytics from sites with a .de extension. Several federal and regional government officials in Germany are trying to put a ban on Google Analytics, the search giant’s free software product that allows website owners and publishers to get detailed statistics about the number, whereabouts and search behavior of their visitors (and much more). According to an article in today’s Zeit Online (poor Google translation here), multiple federal and state government officials charged with guarding over national data protection are convinced that Google Analytics is against the law in Germany and are mulling imposing fines on companies who use the service to gather detailed stats based on their website visitors’ usage patterns without the explicit consent of those visitors. What is probably just as interesting in this quote is the swipe taken at Google’s translation service . I woudn’t know a good German translation if it came up and smacked me in the head (apologies to Herr Manger who was my German teacher for two years in HS. Nothing stuck other than “Ich habe keine idee” which I think means “I have no idea” – NOTE- This was confirmed by Google Translate ) So apparently this isn’t the first time that the German government has voiced these concerns with most of their worry pointed at healthcare data and other sensitive areas. Interestingly enough some of larger media organizations use Google Analytics so this should be fun to watch if it actually turns into anything. So what’s at risk for those using Google Analytics One German lawyer that gets cited in the article says the penalties could amount up to €50,000 (about $75,000) per website that uses Google Analytics to keep track of its visitors’ usage patterns. Google’s take. Well, they disagree of course. What else would you expect? Google Germany’s Per Meyerdierks, however, says the company is well within its rights to process user data in the United States because it respects the Safe Harbour treaty between the EU and the USA. He argues that an opt-out would be entirely unnecessary, and that users always have the option to refuse cookies anyway. Now my question to the German government is the following. If you are uncomfortable with Google having this kind of data for many companies what about the individual companies that are collecting the same data using something else and not nearly as secure as Google is?

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Ich bin ein Googler!

It seems like every month another news organization toys with the idea of charging for their content. But, we always rejoin, you’ll ultimately sacrifice your audience if you charge for news content. However, the Boston Consulting Group says that may not always be the case—in fact, even Americans are willing to pay for online news . Well, sort of. The average amount an American was willing to pay for news was $3—and not $3 a day, but $3 a month . Not exactly the profits Rupert Murdoch dreams of, is it? The survey also found that people were more willing to pay for news that was: Unique, such as local news (67 percent overall are interested; 72 percent of U.S. respondents) or specialized coverage (63 percent overall are interested; 73 percent of U.S. respondents) Timely, such as a continual news alert service (54 percent overall are interested; 61 percent of U.S. respondents) Conveniently accessible on a device of choice And good news for newspapers: “consumers are more likely to pay for online news provided by newspapers than by other media, such as television stations, Web sites, or online portals,” especially since these other media have so much free competition. Interestingly, while Americans were more likely to pay for sites that offered access to multiple papers, only national and local—not major metropolitan-based papers—have that level of appeal. (I’m not sure which category The New York Times and Washington Post fall into here.) Marc Vos, a Milan-based partner and leader of BCG’s media sector in Europe, tells newspapers that they “should be experimenting with paid online content. It will take trial and error to find what works.” The prospects aren’t so bleak everywhere. In addition to 1000 US respondents, the survey also looked at results in Germany, Australia, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Norway, Finland. While Australians also wanted to pay only $3 (USD?) for their news, other countries saw higher rates. The New York Times said that this may be because Western Europe has more consolidated news offerings, where news in the US is a very fragmented industry. However, before Western European news sites get all excited, note that the highest amount on the survey, in Italy, was $7 a month. What do you think? What would you be willing to pay for news? Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Consumers Willing to Pay (Pennies) for News