And Google's Response Is ...?

As noted earlier, Google's Adam Smith posted on April 29 to the Google Public Policy Blog in response to the news that the Google Books settlement both was being delayed by Judge Denny Chin for four months and was being investigated by the Justice Department for possible antitrust violations. Euphemistically, Smith wrote, "Over the last few weeks we've heard a number of questions." He promised to attempt to answer them "over the coming days."

Still waiting for those answers, Adam.

The answer may be that Google has no answers -- that the company is asserting that sanctifying Google Books as a monopoly, by the irregular means of a private settlement of litigation for past infringement, "will expand access" (as the headline of Smith's post asserted), so the Sherman Antitrust Act can be damned.

Not a winning argument.

Irv Muchnick