European telecommunication giants are preparing to fight Google over the data traffic and bandwidth that is consumed due to YouTube videos, according to a new report from the Financial Times. Their goal: to have Google pay them for the bandwidth YouTube and its other websites consume.
Telefónica, S.A., France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are all cited in the report as being part of a new coalition looking to change the current state of affairs, where users are charged for Internet access, rather than websites that provide the content they consume. These telecoms believe that Google should share its online ad revenue with network operators for carrying its content. YouTube is their biggest complaint: by far, it is the most data-intensive service that the search giant offers.
It is also reported that the telecoms are looking for partners that might be interested in a fight with Google, including media companies that are upset with Google’s aggregation of their content in Google News.
From France Telecom CEO Stéphane Richard:
“Let’s see the development of digital society in terms of the winners and the victims. And today, there is a winner who is Google. There are victims that are content providers, and to a certain extent, network operators. We cannot accept this.”
The battle between telecoms and Google is not new: Comcast has been fighting with Google and the FCC over net neutrality rules as it seeks stronger controls over how much data comes through its network. It’s unclear how this battle will play out or who will be involved, but you can bet that it’ll heat up before it dies down.