Larry Page, chief executive and co-founder of Google, has said he would be happy to break the law again to advance his business, while taking swipes at Apple and Facebook.
In an interview with Wired magazine, Page points out that Google was illegal when it began in 1997 because at the time making a copy of a file in a computer’s memory was against copyright laws.
He said: “Show me a company that failed because of litigation … Companies fail because they do the wrong things or they aren’t ambitious, not because of litigation or competition.”
The comments are potentially explosive considering Google’s Android mobile software has been the subject of several lawsuits from both Apple and Microsoft. Page had to testify in court last year over allegations from Oracle of copyright infringements in Android.
The search giant was also criticised in 2004 when it launched Google Books and included the digitisation of work still under copyright and without the required permission.
While saying he wanted his company to continue to make “moon shots”, such as the development of a self-driving car and their launch of Gmail in 2003, which gave 1GB storage for free, he described Apple’s ambition as “unsatisfying”.
He said: “You know, we always have these debates: we have all this money, we have all these people, why aren’t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying.”
Regarding Facebook, he said: “They’re also doing a really bad job on their products … we’re actually doing something different [from Facebook]. I think it’s outrageous to say that there’s only space for one company in these areas.”
