Europe against Google & Co.? What is it about? The search engine Google has a market share of more than 90 per cent in most European countries. It has been developed in Silicon Valley and has thus grown out of a very specific economic and innovative culture which has been coined 'Californian Ideology'. This label stands for the combination of the free-wheeling spirit of the hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies. The result of this combination is a search engine which conquered

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... e parts of the world because of its state-of-the-art search algorithm, but also because of its clever business model. Google transforms personal data into user profiles which are used to display personalised advertising. These profiles are fed with data from different Google services -ranging from simple web searches to map services, or social media to 'intelligent' artefacts such as Google Glass. Especially since Snowden's revelations, these business practices have been discussed critically. In Europe, Google is confronted with a number of accusations including the abuse of its quasi-monopoly, data protection violations and collaborations with secret services. Further reading Mager, A. (2014) Is small really beautiful? Big search and its alternatives, in: König, R.; Rasch, M. (Hg.