Amazon workers in Italy strike over pay and conditions

Yahoo – AFP,  December 20, 2017

Workers at Amazon's Castel San Giovanni facility in the north of Italy have been
 demanding better wages and a restructuring of work conditions for weeks
(AFP Photo/LEON NEAL)

Rome (AFP) - Workers at Amazon's distribution centre in Italy went on strike for about two hours Wednesday to demand better pay and conditions, the second time workers have walked off the job in less than a month.

The workers at Amazon's Castel San Giovanni facility in the north of the country have been demanding better wages and a restructuring of work conditions for weeks.

Some 500 workers previously observed a one-day strike on November 24, to coincide with the US online retailer's 'Black Friday' sales bonanza, as did some 2,000 workers at six sites in Germany.

"Employees on the day's first shift (between 0500 and 1300 GMT) stopped work during the last two hours," a company spokeswoman said.

"A general meeting is under way and we do not know what action the movement will give," she said, adding that deliveries were not affected by the walkout.

The Amazon facility employs about 400 full-time workers but can add several thousand more during peak times.

The company said in a statement it was committed to "continuous dialogue and positive cooperation" with all employees.

Related Article:

Strike hits Amazon logistics centers in Germany

Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech

German lawmakers have approved a controversial law that would impose high fines on social media companies like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube for failing to swiftly delete posts deemed to exhibit hate speech.

Deutsche Welle, 30 June 2017

Under the new legislation, social media companies have 24 hours to remove posts that obviously violate German law and have been reported by other users. In cases that are more ambiguous, Facebook and other sites have seven days to deal with the offending post. If they don't comply with the new legislation, the companies could face a fine of up to 50 million euros ($57.1 million).

The law was passed with votes from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - Social Democratic Party (SPD) government coalition. The Left Party in the Bundestag voted against it, while members of the Greens abstained.

The new rules are supposed to drastically reduce the number of posts containing hate speech, fake news and terror propaganda on social media. In January and February 2017, Youtube deleted 90 percent of hate speech videos reported by users - but Twitter only deleted one percent. Facebook did a little better at 39 percent.

"We do not accept the fact that companies in Germany do not adhere to the law," Justice Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) told public broadcaster ARD in April, explaining why the new legislation was necessary.

Skeptics criticize, however, that under the new rules social media managers are the ones who have to decide whether content complies with German law. They also worry that freedom of speech will suffer since, in their opinion, companies are likely to delete many posts just to be on the safe side and avoid fines. 

Maas said the new law didn't curb freedom of speech but was rather a prerequisite for it. To counter the criticism, the legislation also stipulates the establishment of an independent regulatory institution to which Facebook and other sites can pass on content when they're not sure whether it should be deleted. Investigators there will then make the final decision.

Landmark legislation in Europe

In addition to the strict new rules about deletion, the law forces networks to reveal the identity of those behind the hateful posts and to offer users "an easily recognizable, directly reachable, and constantly available" complaint process for "prosecutable content," which includes libel, slander, defamation, incitement to commit a crime, hate speech against a particular social group, and threats.

Germany is the first country in Europe to introduce such clear legal guidelines against online hate speech.

Related Article:

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

Dutch spent €1bn buying goods from EU websites in 2016

DutchNews, May 23, 2017

Consumers in the Netherlands spent more than €1bn buying goods from web shops in other European countries  2016, a 25% gain over the previous year, the national statistics office CBS said on Tuesday. 

Clothing and shoes were the most popular items,the CBS said. The figures come from a joint big data project between the CBS and Amsterdam and Leiden universities 

The survey revealed that more than 80% of EU purchases by Dutch consumers were made on German, British, Belgian and Italian websites with German websites accounting for 50%. Britain claimed 12% and Belgium and Italy were each worth 8% of sales.

Rare Apple-I fetches less than expected at German auction

The computer was one of just 200 Apple-1 computers marketed by its founders - Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The winner of Saturday's auction was a German engineer who collects old computers.

Deutsche Welle, 20 May 2017

 One of the earliest Apple-1 computers, still in working condition after 40 years, sold for $125,000 (110,000 euros) at an auction in Cologne Saturday.

Despite the extraordinary price, it sold for much less than the expected 180,000-300,000 euros - suggesting that the spike in prices following the death of Apple's co-founder in 2011 is over.

"From our point of view we are back at normal levels. Five years after the death of [Apple co-founder] Steve Jobs the 'hype' has settled back," said Uwe Breker, who oversaw the auction in Cologne.

Breker's auction house specializes in selling technical antiques. It was also involved in a 2013 sale of another Apple-I, which fetched 516,000 euros.

A German engineer

The model auctioned off Saturday, whose original owner was a Californian engineer, still had its receipt, its operating manual and other documents.

"[The Apple 1] was one of the first opportunities for someone to possess a real computer. I'd been working with computers for a while but they were huge," original owner John J. Dryden, who bought the Apple in 1976, said Friday.

Dryden admitted that parting with the machine was wrenching, but said the time had come as he had not used it in a long time.

The computer was one of around 200 Apple-1 units marketed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who developed and built it.

bik/jlw (dpa, AFP)

Related Articles:

Global music sales hit high on streaming boom

Music executives said that sales were propped up by the growing popularity,

and competition, of paid streaming services led by Spotify and competitors

including Apple Music, Tidal and Deezer

"Wild Cards" (3) - Nov 19 - 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)- (Text version)

"...Then there was Steve Jobs. He was a wild card. What he did had little to do with technology, for that would have happened anyway soon enough. Instead, it had to do with the paradigm of the business of music on Earth. He freed it, and the paradigm of how music is obtained and heard will never be the same. However, Steve Jobs did basically one thing for all of you, and then he died. Do you see any kind of connecting of the dots to some of the inventors who come and give you the one thing, then leave? If he had lived, would there be more? Yes, but you’re not ready for it. Consciousness has to support what happens.  ...."

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

Media outlets' Facebook pages are often dominated by haters, but the German group #ichbinhier is talking back. It now has tens of thousands of members who are helping restore civility to social media.

Deutsche Welle, 9 April 2017

Logo No Hate Speech Movement

It's Friday evening, a couple of hours after the truck attack in Stockholm, and the Facebook page of a major German TV news station is filling up with comments inveighing against refugees and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It's an all too familiar scene in an age when anyone can play pundit on social media and hateful tirades are part of political discourse.

But in this case, other users suddenly appear on the station's Facebook page to confront the haters. What evidence is there that the Stockholm attacker was a refugee, they ask. How do we know he was religiously motivated? What does Merkel have to do with a one-off event in Sweden? Shouldn't people wait for all the facts?

What might look like a series of individual responses is actually a loosely coordinated action by a closed Facebook group called #ichbinhier (the English equivalent is #iamhere). Yan, an event coordinator from Berlin, is one of those who helped contain the trolls.

"We usually go to the big media sites because they're either unmoderated or, if they are, it's only for 10 or 15 minutes," Yan told Deutsche Welle. "I can understand that. It's not like we work against the media. And sometimes we get nice feedback. I recently got an email from an intern at a major German newspaper who thanked us for helping to deal with hate speech that came in the middle of the night and overwhelmed him."

Yan took to Facebook to
counter hate speech about
the Stockholm attack

The idea is a bit like a volunteer neighborhood watch for the digital age, with users patrolling the internet to enforce minimum standards of civilized speech on issues that get people hot under the collar. And it originally comes from Sweden.

Feels like team spirit

Hannes Ley, a digital communications expert, founded #ichbinhier in late December, basing it on the Swedish Facebook initiative #jagärhär, which currently has more than 67,000 members. The German version of the initiative has had similar success, attracting almost 30,000 members in well under four months.

The key, says Ley, is that people who used to write comments on the internet alone as individuals now do so as a group. That makes them more confident.

"There's a sense of being part of a team," Ley told DW. "Users say that they now feel capable of expressing their opinions again and feel strong."

#ichbinhier stages three interventions per day. Ley says the group's activities don't just make haters think twice about spewing bile on Facebook pages, but also raise general public awareness on issues.

"For example in Holland, a journalist filmed two male politicians holding hands in response to an attack on a homosexual couple," Ley recalls. "It elicited the classic homophobic comments. We called upon the community to do something. That attracted a lot of attention, and some of our comments had over 500 likes."

Right-wing extremists use
Facebook to advance their agenda

#ichbinhier responses to haters fall into two general categories. Members can simply express contrary views, or they can use fact dossiers on certain issues drawn from sources like the German government's Office for Statistics to argue empirically against irrational points of view. The only thing that's forbidden is trading insults - "Don't feed the trolls" remains a guiding principle.

Calling the fire department

Traditionally, providing the public with facts was the job of journalists. But Ley says he sees a "negative spiral" of distortion in which media outlets, with their often tight personnel resources, fail to monitor their Facebook platforms, so that hate speech not only becomes more and more dominant, but also more and more radical.

Counterspeech initiatives like #ichbinhier, say experts, are a useful and appropriate tool for news outlets to prevent trolls from monopolizing the discussion. André Kroll, a social-media training instructor and a journalist who works for German public TV, says that there's no shame in calling for emergency help from outside.

"For me it's like a kind of volunteer fire department for social media," Kroll told DW. "If a post - be it about refugees or foreigners or anything else - has gotten out of control, it's perfectly legitimate to invite others to come in and join the discussion. #ichbinhier has demonstrated that it can achieve results."

Perhaps the clearest mark of #ichbinhier's success is that right-wing extremists themselves now complain on Facebook that the group is trying to deprive them of their right to free speech.

A challenge for Facebook

Facebook has struggled to control hateful posts

And what about Facebook itself? Germany recently introduced legislation requiring social media platforms to combat hate speech. What does the Californian company think of initiatives like #ichbinhier? Would it be willing to help them?

In an email response, a Facebook spokeswoman told DW that Facebook supported a number of counterspeech initiatives, including the company's own Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI), which organizes anti-hate speech seminars for NGOs. Ley took part in one of those seminars earlier this year but came away unimpressed.

"I thought it was like a minor advertising campaign for Facebook," Ley said. "As a response to my criticism about the event, I was given a coupon for 100 euros in ad credits. Honestly, that's laughable."

Ley added that his initiative could use technical support and help in campaigning from Facebook.

Toning down the aggression

Counterspeech groups are a way
of coping with right-wing populism

Leaving aside Facebook's official policies, counterspeech initiatives succeed or fail on the commitment of their members. Yan says he spends at least one and probably two hours a day on #ichbinhier actions. So what motivates people to volunteer significant chunks of their time to trying to talk reason to haters?

Yan says he signed up after wandering around in a state of "shock" following Donald Trump's election as US president. The group, he adds, gave him the sense that he could do something to alter what he felt was the growing irrationality and hatefulness in the world.

He also says that engaging with haters in the virtual universe of the internet has changed the way he behaves and uses language in the real world.

"If someone calls me a 'gay a**hole' on the street, I no longer turn around and say 'f**k you,'" he told DW. "I'll say something like, 'You seem to know quite a lot about homosexuals.' I'll say something that's not at the bottommost level. That's a much better way to react."

#ichbinhier has not only made people like Yan feel empowered. They say it's taught them that there are better ways of asserting one's presence than hurling injurious language at others.

Related Article:

Germany threatens online giants with 50 mn euro hate speech fines

Germany threatens online giants with 50 mn euro hate speech fines

Yahoo – AFP, Hui Min NEO, April 5, 2017

The German government has approved fines of up to 50 million euros ($53 million)
 against online giants that fail to remove hate speech and fake news reported by
users within a week (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)

Berlin (AFP) - Germany on Wednesday took the European lead in cracking down against hate speech and fake news, threatening social media giants with fines of up to 50 million euros if they fail to remove offensive posts promptly.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet approved the tough measure after assessing that companies like Twitter and Facebook were not doing enough to erase content that falls foul of German law.

"Hate crimes that are not effectively combatted and prosecuted pose a great danger to the peaceful cohesion of a free, open and democratic society," said Merkel's government in a statement.

Since the arrival of around one million asylum-seekers in Germany since 2015, the volume of xenophobic hate speech has exploded online.

Alarmed by the incendiary nature of the posts, the government has repeatedly warned the online behemoths to better police the content on their network.

The web companies had pledged in 2015 to examine and remove within 24 hours any hateful comments, but Justice Minister Heiko Maas said not enough was done.

Citing a government study, Maas said Twitter only took down one percent and Facebook 39 percent of the content reported by users.

Google's YouTube video sharing platform fared far better, with a rate of 90 percent.

Beyond hate speech and fake news, the draft legislation also covers other illegal content, including child pornography and terror-related activity.

The companies would have 24 hours to remove any posts that openly violate German law after they are flagged by users.

Other offensive content would have to be deleted within seven days after it is reported and reviewed.

Executives of the social media groups also risk individual fines up to five million euros ($5.3 million) in case of non-compliance.

Under German law, Holocaust denial, incitement of hatred and racist speech are illegal.

The volume of xenophobic hate speech has exploded online

in Germany (AFP Photo/STF)

'Policing opinion?'

But critics warned that the proposed law could stifle freedom of expression.

Renate Kuenast, an MP with the opposition Greens, said the fines were "almost an invitation to not just erase real insults, but to wipe out almost everything for the sake of playing it safe".

Likewise, the German Federation of Journalists said it would be "difficult to reconcile freedom of the press and opinion" with the proposed legislation.

Facebook warned that "this legislation would force private companies rather than the courts to become the judges of what is illegal in Germany".

More than 700 people will be working on the content review task force for the company in Berlin by year's end, said the group, which made profits of $3.7 billion (3.5 billion euros) in the last three months of 2016.

It also rejected the data cited by Maas, saying that a test carried out by FSM -- a self-regulation lobby group backed by online media -- found that Facebook deleted more than 65 percent of illegal content within a day.

Maas acknowledged that freedom of expression "has huge significance in our democracy".

But he added: "Freedom of expression ends where criminal law begins," predicting that Germany's measure would only be a start.

"In the end, we need European solutions for companies that operate across Europe," Maas told reporters.

'Talking to a wall'

Underlining the frustration with the slow-moving fight against such online hate, one social network user, Steffi Brachtel, told AFP she had filed countless complaints to Facebook over offensive posts.

But only once did it agree to remove a post -- a Hitler-related one, she said.

The waitress had begun her one-woman campaign against online hate speech after a friend shared an objectionable cartoon on Facebook.

"I spent several hours every day on Facebook, trying to tell people to watch what they are saying... but got the feeling that I was talking to a wall," she said.

Brachtel said she also faced physical threats. Neo-Nazis followed her on her way home and her letterbox was bombed.

But she warned that if action is not taken against far-right material, "then it just gets passed on and on, and that's how the hate gets bigger in people, and that's a major problem".

Hounded over Merkel selfie, Syrian refugee sues Facebook

Yahoo – AFP, Carsten HAUPTMEIER, February 6, 2017

Syrian refugee Anas Modamani (left) is accusing Facebook of helping to spread
defamatory fake news over a 2015 selfie that he took with Chancellor Angela Merkel
(AFP Photo/Karl-Josef Hildenbrand)

Wuerzburg (Germany) (AFP) - A Syrian refugee whose selfie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been repeatedly manipulated to link him to violent jihad, took Facebook to court Monday for spreading defamatory fake news.

Anas Modamani, 19, says the US social media giant has failed to take down doctored images and posts that have falsely linked him to, among other things, deadly Islamist attacks in Brussels and Berlin last year.

He has asked a court in the southern city of Wuerzburg for an injunction against Facebook Ireland Limited, the group's European subsidiary, requiring it to take down posts linking him to terrorism or criminal offences.

That includes a recent posting which wrongfully claims Modamani was among a group of Berlin juvenile delinquents who tried to set fire to a homeless man in a case that sparked public outrage last Christmas.

Modamani is being represented by German lawyer Chan-jo Jun, who has already launched separate criminal complaints against Facebook for inciting hatred.

Jun argues that Facebook acts as "a content provider, a journalistic medium, which through its guidelines, algorithms and journalist-bots influences which content people see and how".

Online fury

"Facebook must finally follow German law... to remove illegal content," he said ahead of Monday's hearing, claiming that the company's own community standards did not prevent defamatory and insulting statements.

Modamani arrived in Germany in 2015, along with tens of thousands of other Syrians.

When Merkel visited his Berlin refugee shelter in September that year, he took two selfie images with her in jubilant scenes also captured by a news agency photographer.

Since then, those images have been manipulated and used in different contexts countless times, as right-wing fury has flared online against Merkel's liberal stance on refugees.

Trolls have cut and pasted Modamani's picture into wanted posters and on fake news reports, typically alleging that the refugee made famous by the Merkel selfie had turned out to be a terrorist.

"The main motivation of Anas Modamani is that it stops," Jun has told AFP, adding that his client, who is now taking German language courses and working in a fast food restaurant, "dreams of studying in Germany".

Facebook says it will introduce new measures to take down "unambiguously wrong 

reports" being shared by its users (AFP Photo/KAREN BLEIER)

Fake news

Publicising the case has brought much attention to Modamani and already helped clear his name, Jun said.

A Facebook spokesman told AFP: "We are sorry to hear about Mr. Modamani's concerns with the way some people have used his image.

"We are committed to meeting our obligations under German law in relation to content which is shared by people on our platform.

"We have already quickly disabled access to content that has been accurately reported to us by Mr. Modamani's legal representatives, so we do not believe that legal action here is necessary or that it is the most effective way to resolve the situation."

Facebook has faced heavy criticism in Germany for fake news and hate speech spread by its users, leading the company to promise corrective steps on both fronts.

The company and other web giants pledged in December 2015 to examine and remove within 24 hours any hateful comments that were spreading online in Germany, in particular over the mass influx of 890,000 migrants that year.

Jun last year launched legal action against Facebook in Munich, accusing its executives of condoning incitement of hate and violence, and of failing to remove illegal content despite being notified.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who has been negotiating with social network chiefs, has also warned that Facebook and others could be punished if they do not comply with German law.

Last October, a senior leader of Merkel's centre-right party, Volker Kauder, warned social networks that Germany could introduce fines for illegal content that is not removed within a week, with a suggested penalty of 50,000 euros ($55,000) per post.

Facebook announced in mid-January that it would introduce new measures to take down "unambiguously wrong reports" being shared on the social media platform.

The company said it would offer a simpler reporting process for users to flag suspected fake news, display warnings next to statements identified as false by independent fact-checking organisations, and cut off advertising revenue to fake news sites.

Facebook's Zuckerberg promises Merkel action on hate speech

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received assurances from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that the company will combat racist comments on the Internet. They met on the sidelines of a UN development summit.

Deutsche Welle, 27 Sep 2015

Zuckerberg and Merkel talking at table

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel that his company would work on measures to combat racist and hateful comments on the social media platform.

In comments heard over an inadvertently live microphone on the United Nations live stream at a global summit in New York, Merkel asked whether Zuckerberg intended to improve the situation, to which he answered: "Yes."

This comes after German Justice Minister Heiko Maas met with Facebook representatives in Berlin in mid-September following the posting of a number of right-wing extremist and racist comments about refugees.

Maas had expressed bewilderment that photos considered to be indecent were quickly deleted, while hate speech postings were often left on Facebook pages even after users had complained. Merkel had also called on the company to take measures to fight mass incitement.

Among other things, it was agreed at the meeting to form a task force to tackle the problem of hate speech on the Internet.

Internet for all

Also at the UN special summit, which aims to formulate steps toward eradicating extreme poverty by 2030, Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates pledged to attempt to bring Internet access to everyone in the world by 2020.

"When people have access to the tools and knowledge of the Internet, they have access to opportunities that make life better for all of us," said a declaration signed by Zuckerberg and Bill and Melinda Gates.

Bill and Melinda Gates have dedicated
much of their wealth to philanthropic goals

"The Internet belongs to everyone. It should be accessible by anyone," the statement added.

'Key driver'

Zuckerberg said for every 10 people connected to the Internet, one is lifted out of poverty, adding that broader Internet access could allow 600 million children who currently have no opportunity for schooling to be educated.

He also described the Internet as "the key driver of social and economic progress in our time," saying that it provided "the chance to build a common global community with a shared understanding."

The current UN summit, which ends Sunday, is aimed at fixing some of the world's greatest problems by means of a 15-year road map, which was endorsed on Friday by the 193 members of the world body. The plan includes measures to combat climate change and eradicate the worst cases of poverty.

tj/sms (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Robot tours Germany

A talking robot began its tour of Germany today. Its destinations include the iconic Neuschwanstein Castle, Berlin and the North Sea island of Sylt. Last summer the robot hitchhiked 6000 kilometers through Canada.

Deutsche Welle, 13 Feb 2015

With millions of fans following its Canadian adventure, "hitchBOT" - as the robot is known - is as experienced as it is famous. And now the famed robot descends on the autobahns of Bavaria near Munich where it will begin its 10 day tour of Germany. The robot will require assistance from the public as it cannot move - and willing motorists will need to lift the eight kilogram creature into their vehicles. hitchBOT is around the size of a six year old child with a barrel-shaped body. His legs are made of floating aides stuck into rubber boots and his head is topped with the lid of a trash can.

His German skills are somewhat rudimentary - but he knows the essentials, such as 'currywurst' and 'feierabend', or 'end of work' - and can talk endlessly about his hobbies, including soccer, hockey, baking and riding.

The objectives for hitchBOT's German sojourn are set: at Neuschwanstein he will take to the throne room and in Cologne he will hitch a ride on the Rose Monday train. Then the Canadian embassy will officially welcome him to Berlin at the city's Brandenburg Gate.

What's the purpose behind the robot's trip? The inventors, David Harris Smith and Frauke Zeller, hope to promote human interaction with robots. Florian Röhrbein, a computer scientist at the Technical University of Munich, said that the experiment is of interest for sociological reasons and outcomes, rather than technical. "He can help reduce apprehension." There are still many reservations to using robots, for example in nursing - although they could relieve human staff. Following hitchBOT's tour the inventors will analyze data to determine where the robot was more welcome: Canada or Germany.

ey/jt (dpa, afp)

Spanish law forcing out Google News 'short-sighted and dumb'

With Google News set to leave Spain due to a new law that favors the newspaper industry lobby, DW examines the impact of the new legislation in Spain and Europe.

Deutsche Welle, 11 Dec 2014

Aggregator Google News will stop displaying content on December 16 in Spain due to new legislation, the Internet giant has announced. The Spanish law taking effect in January requires news aggregators to pay publishers for displaying content even if they want to offer it for free. In addition, the law requires Google News and similar services to pay a fee to the association of Spanish newspapers (AEDE) for displaying content. A failure to pay the fee could result in a fine of up to 600,000 euros ($746,000).

Small publishers to lose big

Efforts by the association of Spanish newspapers to get Google News and other aggregators to pay for displaying the content of its members is likely to backfire at its members.

"It was short-sighted and relatively dumb because they don't see Google as a partner in the advertising and distribution of the content, but as a competitor," says Philipp Otto, editor in chief of online magazine irights.info.

The new law will lead to massive losses in traffic, especially for smaller publishers, Otto explains.

While major publishing houses can offset loss of traffic by shifting the location of where content is published, smaller businesses are unlikely to move such operations abroad. And their work won't be taken seriously online if it cannot be found easily, Otto says.

"That will bring with it many problems and will cost jobs at publishing houses," he adds.

 Spanish papers on abdication of their king.

The major Spanish publications can publish articles in other countries so that
they are included on aggregator sites

German publishers couldn't beat Google

In Germany, an attempt to get Google to pay for content already backfired. The country's 2013 Leistungsschutzrecht (ancillary copyright law) allows publishers to charge news aggregators for displaying their content. However, Google News was able to circumvent the law because it isn't as restrictive as the Spanish equivalent. The search engine can ask publishers to opt-in (to offer content for free) or out of Google News.

Publishers that chose to opt-out soon discovered how much they rely on Google. In November, Germany's largest publisher Axel Springer had to stop blocking Google News from displaying snippets of its content because it experienced a significant decline in traffic.

So Google and the publishing industry have to work together because they profit from each other, says Philipp Otto, irights.info's editor in chief. Publishers get to advertise their content for free while Google profits by being able to publish snippets of the content.

"There's no problem. You don't have to make regulations. It's a free market, and both parties have to work together for that to work," Otto says.

Earlier this year, an open letter to Google by Axel Springer CEO Mathias
Döpfner caused a stir in media industry

An unhealthy relationship?

But the dependence of many news sites on Google and Facebook for traffic is viewed as a problem by many. Frédéric Filloux, head of digital news at French business daily Les Echos, recently criticized the Internet giant's influence in an article, "How Facebook and Google now dominate Media Distribution." The relationship between the Internet giant and the publishers is unequal because their algorithms for displaying content aren't transparent, he writes.

But for Otto, the major problem lies with the publishing industry. Several players don't understand how the Internet works, he says. "Publishers can come together to promote their content, either by producing their own things where there are links for users to come, or they can work with other players."

Otto believes new ideas, innovation and collaboration by players in the newspaper industry could help reduce their dependence on Google. But there has to be a change in the mindset of publishers.

"[Facebook, Google, Twitter and co] are their best friends because they are getting a great service," Otto says. "That's why they should get rid of their fear."

German citizens' communication data reportedly passed to NSA

Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency has for years passed data on German citizens to the NSA, according to media reports. All data on Germans was previously said to have been filtered out.

Deutsche Welle, 4 Oct 2014

From 2004 to 2008, raw data was siphoned from an internet exchange point in Frankfurt and forwarded to the NSA, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and regional public broadcasters NDR and WDR reported on Friday.

The reports cited secret government documents submitted to the ongoing parliamentary inquiry into NSA spying.

It was first reported in June that the BND was handing information collected in Frankfurt to the NSA, codenamed "Eikonal," but information on German citizens was said to have been filtered out.

According to the latest Bundestag documents, however, BND internal tests showed that at least 5 percent of the German citizens' communications data could not be filtered.

An "absolute and mistake-free" separation of German and foreign citizens' communications is not possible, the secret documents said.

Frankfurt's DE-CIX internet exchange point is the largest in the world. Data streams from various internet providers meet there to be passed onto their respective destinations.

dr/jm (AFP, dpa, Reuters)