SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Germany Applies Brakes to Google & Co.

from Spiegel

Sometimes it's a good thing to have at least one real enemy, particularly when you already have no friends. No one knows this better than Ilse Aigner.

For the last year and a half, Aigner, who is from Upper Bavaria and is a member of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, has been Germany's minister of food, agriculture and consumer protection ... She hasn't made much of an impression.

Until now, that is. She recently took on a truly serious issue: the Internet and data privacy. And suddenly the minister finds herself facing more powerful foes than dodgy butchers: online giants like Amazon, Facebook and, above all, Google.