Stern, May 28, 2015
The relationship between Germany and Google continues to deteriorate, the German weekly Stern says in this week’s edition, with the cover headline: “The Secret World of Google.”
According to a survey the magazine commissioned, only 26% of Germans deem the U.S. search engine “trustworthy,” while 78% consider it “omnipresent” and 38% see it as “threatening.” But the relationship is also more and more paradoxical, as about 40% of Germans think also Google is “pleasant” as well as “indispensable.”
“Europeans shouldn’t be scared” of the Internet giant, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said during the launch of a new automatic Google car prototype in California earlier this week, Stern notes. But so far at least, most Germans don’t agree.