Search Engine Journal

Google’s New Spin Doctor : From Sweatshops to Book Stores

Yesterday Google hired Elliot Schrage to defend the company against fallout from its controversial growth efforts to expand Google beyond web site search, and into book search, user tracking, and Wi-Fi. Mr. Schrage is an experienced International Policy Analyst who is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Digging deeper into his International Relations and its relevancy to his new position, Schrage was also Senior VP of Global Affairs at Gap, where he worked to clean up the company’s image as a sweatshop tyrant. Schrage’s battle now is transformed from defending the exploitation of children and the impoverished, to accusations of exploitation of authors and publishers, as his first controversy to quash will be that of Google Print.

Despite lawsuits from both the Association of American Publishers and Authors’ Guild over questionable copyright violation, Google Print hopes to digitize the world’s book collection and offer the index online. Mr. Schrage may have his hands full.