The heads leading European telecommunications groups, including Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, have called for Google to start paying them for carrying content such as YouTube videos on their networks, reports the Financial Times. To strengthen their voice, the operators are interested in finding common cause with media companies that get little or no money from Google when it aggregates their content on Google News. Telefonica chairman Cesar Alierta said Google should share some of its online advertising revenue with carriers to compensate them for the billions of euros they are investing in fixed-line and mobile infrastructure to increase download speeds and network capacity. Alierta said that regulators should step in to supervise a settlement if no revenue sharing deal was possible between search engines led by Google and network operators. France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard said, "Today, there is a winner who Google. There are victims that are content providers, and to a certain extent, network operators. We cannot accept this". Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann stated, "There is not a single Google service that is not reliant on network service. We cannot offer our networks for free". Google's contribution to the world's data traffic rose sixfold between 2007 and 2009, according to Arbor Networks. Google senior policy director Rick Whitt denied that the company was getting a free ride. He said Google was spending heavily on its own data networks to carry its traffic to the point where it is handed over to carriers around the world. Last week, the chairman of Spanish telecommunications regulator CMT told Expansion that he saw "no justification in forcing Google to share its revenues with Telefonica. He criticised arguments such as 'since you have a business that uses my infrastructure, I want part of your business".
