About

Georg Nolte works for a company that is regularly in the spotlight and frequently subject to (or indeed active part of) legislative developments which are of significant relevance to the general public. One example has been last year’s performance protection legislation covering publishing houses (Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverlage) which Google in parts objected to. The issue under scrutiny has been the question of whether search engine providers should be liable to pay royalties to publishers for displaying search results. ‘For four years we have been voicing our concerns – resulting not in the prevention, but a major modification of the law’. Apart from that, he sets the standard to continuously educate himself about crucial legal issues on a more academic level which he regards as ‘immensely important’. Nolte often follows legal trends over a very long period of time and observes how they ‘continuously develop and how answers and solutions sometimes only emerge after decades’. One example is the area of freedom of speech which poses ‘complex and to date unresolved problems such as how to deal with critical and partly anonymously posted content in blogs or as reviews’. With regards to many of these issues Google is acting as a trend setter that is involved in major legal proceedings. ‘I feel that my work contributes to finding solutions for issues that are relevant to society as a whole which greatly motivates me’. When working with law firms he insists they should be open to criticism, however, he also encourages lawyers to point out if something goes wrong. ‘I feel that there is some reluctance’.