What could more exemplify the sign of times than a paper mill gone belly up, replaced by a Google server farm. I wrote about the paper industry before, ranting about their inability to innovate , and now they are laying off people like there's no tomorrow (well, maybe there isn't for some of them...).

The Finnish-Swedish paper giant Stora Enso has ended their paper manufacturing operations in Hamina. The empty giant halls are getting new occupants, one of which is a wind energy company Winwind, and another being Google. Google is currently building similar server farms in Belgium, and they are negotiating with Austria, says Kay Oberbeck from Google (Helsingin Sanomat February 13).

According to Finnish media, that's about all they say. Google didn't announce the deal, Stora Enso did. Google didn't want to comment what type of server hall they are building, or why they chose that location. Google is working with a Finnish agency called Cursor to plan their presence in Hamina. Representative of Cursor doesn't want to comment much about anything. They say that they are tied to a tight NDA, and cannot comment how many jobs are estimated for Google, or even if Google plans to use the renewable wind energy provided by Winwind (Kauppalehti, February 13).


                             
Another Google news in Finland this week was on the culture pages (Helsingin Sanomat ,February 20). The company has approached a number of Finnish authors with a letter that goes roughly like this: "A book written by you, residing at a university library in the United States, has been transferred into a digital format. We intend to put it online, and show advertisement next to it. You will receive 63% of the advertisement revenue if you consent." The reason for this letter is a US legal case where Google is required to pay something to the authors of books they publish online.

If you know any artists you will guess that these writers weren't pleased about Google's "offer". Putting advertisement next to their life's work isn't something that can be sold with a letter and an ambiguous "63%". The very idea of a commercial company making money on advertisement while distributing their art work for free, is of course alien to the content providers, in this case the writers. If books are getting digitalized and distributed free off the internet, then who is going to pay the writer's salary? Google ads?  I'm all for internet and free distribution of information, but I still think that writers should be paid by what they produce, and not by the advertisement value of what they produce. We may well see the decline of quality content by this increasing demand for having the "right" to rip off content for free over web.

Somehow, even with good intentions Google has managed to stain their reputation in this country with unnecessary secrecy and rude approach. Of all companies in the world, Google should know that nothing stays secret any more, and that image is everything.