By Ellen Emmerentze Jervell And Chase Gummer
FRANKFURT-- Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday said it would launch
Web-hosting services in Germany, pushing deeper into a country that
has been openly hostile to U.S. Internet firms.
Andy Jassy, Amazon's senior vice president for Web services,
said the company would open a new data center near Frankfurt to
handle growing German demand for its products.
The Web retailer and other American Internet companies face
mounting pressure from German regulators and privacy advocates to
conduct more business locally. But Amazon's move also highlights a
trend largely overshadowed by German criticism of U.S. Web giants:
Germans frequently say they fear the growing power of Amazon and
Google Inc., but rank among the world's most avid users of their
offerings.
Since revelations last year of spying by the U.S. in Germany,
German politicians and pundits have attacked Google and other
American tech companies as threats to Germans' personal freedom.
German officials have pushed the European Union to limit Google's
sway in markets. Senior German politicians have said Google should
be broken up, regulated like a utility and forced to reveal secrets
of its Web-search algorithms. One official said Google is more
dangerous than the U.S. National Security Agency.
German media have joined the chorus. The chief executive of Axel
Springer SE, one of Germany's top media companies, in April
published an open letter titled, "Why We Fear Google."
But those pronouncements don't resonate with all Germans,
particularly young ones.
"I don't know which Germans they were referring to," said
Christian Zinnack, a 23-year-old student in Düsseldorf. "Definitely
not me--or any people I know."
Amazon last year carried 25% of all German online retail
traffic, making it the country's largest online retailer. Germany
is Amazon's second-biggest market after the U.S.
Google handles more than 90% of German online searches, giving
it a much higher market share than it holds in the U.S.
Not all Germans are comfortable with what that usage entails.
According to a June survey by Allensbach Institute, a Germany-based
market research institute, 70% of Germans oppose companies
collecting personal data and 42% express serious concern about
it.
Germans staged protests in 2010 against Google Street View, the
company's service offering images taken by cars diving down
streets, calling it an invasion of their privacy.
Decades of state surveillance by the Nazis and the East German
communists made Germans more anxious than most about personal
information.
"Spying has always been a major public topic in Germany," said
Jo Groebel, a media psychologist and head of the Deutsche Digital
Institut in Berlin. "I wouldn't call it paranoia," he said. "But
it's a deep collective experience."
He said Germans are "particularly worried" about privacy in the
digital world.
A big concern to Germans is companies that acquire
"government-like competencies, but aren't accountable in the same
way," said Daniel Knapp, an advertising analyst at consulting firm
IHS.
But Germans' worries don't necessarily affect their behavior.
Research indicates Germans who express concern over Google use its
services as much as those who don't express concern. To some
observers, this suggests the issue arose in few Germans' minds
before raised by pollsters.
"In social sciences, we try to find out: Is this really a topic
when you don't ask people," said Mr. Groebel. "In the case of
fearing Google, it probably isn't."
Although 70% of Germans say they're against Google collecting
data, 71% also say the benefit of Google's products outweigh
potential drawbacks.
Even among those who claim to be seriously worried, only 4% said
they mainly see disadvantages from the data collection.
Many Germans are wary of American Web companies because they are
foreign, and because Germany has few successful large Internet
firms. But some say the antagonism is also being stoked by German
media, which see American Web giant's power to attract advertising
as a threat to their traditional business.
"The way that large parts of the German press write about Google
and Amazon seems to me to be about as neutral as the way oil
companies report on climate change, or the pharmaceutical industry
on health risks, " said Justus Haucap, director of the Düsseldorf
Institute for Competition Economics.
A spokesman for Axel Springer said the German situation could be
seen from many angles. "The range of views and theories on Google
and other big players presented in the German media is very
broad."
Axel Springer this June acquired a 20% stake in Qwant, a French
search engine focused on privacy.
Stephan Doerner contributed to this article.
Write to Ellen Emmerentze Jervell at ellen.jervell@wsj.com and
Chase Gummer at Chase.Gummer@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
Senior German politicians have said Google should be broken up
and regulated like a utility. An earlier version of this article
incorrectly said they wanted Google to be regulated like a
monopoly.
Justus Haucap is the director of the Düsseldorf Institute for
Competition Economics. An earlier version of this article
incorrectly referred to the institute as the Düsseldorf Institute
for Corporate Economics.
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