'Coffee has to be paid for with personal data'
‘Fuck off Google’: None of Google’s 6 campus projects have been met with as much protest as the one in the German capital.
Internet giant Google with its headquarters in Mountain View, California, plans to also settle in an industrial part of west Berlin with 3000m2 worth of offices, cafes and co-working spaces.
However, whilst Seoul, Madrid, Warsaw and Tel-Aviv seemed to enjoy the image of a ‘cool’ company Google is trying to establish by handing out free snacks and offering massages, Berlin is nowhere near as easily impressed.
One of the organisers of the ‘Fuck Off Google’ campaign, a hacker who is known as Larry Pageblank, complains to the AFP: ‘It is extremely arrogant and violent that the company whose economic model is based on mass surveillance and speculation will be landing here as this will accelerate gentrification, and people are already being kicked out of their homes because of this.’
Each first Friday of the month the collective organise protests in front of Google’s future campus.
For Ralf Bremer, the spokesperson for Google Germany, this demonisation is exaggerated. He claims that ‘the campus will be open to the public, those interested in entrepreneurship and start-ups’. He adds that a ‘mezzanine’ will be part of the campus. The aim of this will be to welcome ‘residents’ of an incubator project.
‘Industrial farm of ideas’
According to those who are more critical of Google, the company employs a Trojan horse type strategy: ‘they will set up a sort of industrial farm where ideas, talents and projects will be harvested merely for them to become a part of the Google empire, all whilst going through Ireland and the Netherlands, so as not to pay taxes’, says Larry Pageblank.
However, the mayor of Berlin, social-democrat Michael Müller, is convinced that the project will stimulate Berlin’s economy, as well as help establish the city alongside other world capitals of technology.
‘Silicon Alley’
By gaining the title ‘Silicon Alley’ Berlin has left the era of renting large artistic lofts for just a few euros behind.
According to a study carried out by Knight Fox, Berlin is the capital most affected by the recent rise in housing prices. Rents increased by 20,5% between 2016 and 2017. In Kreuzberg, they have increased by a staggering 71%.
Google’s executive committee, who have already pushed back the opening of its new site which was initially planned for this summer, refuse to be the scapegoat for Berlin’s adoption of a middle-class outlook which it already deems irreversible.
Bremer says: ‘We are also Berliners. We live here, we are well aware of the fact that renting prices have been increasing since the early 2000’s. We cannot fight gentrification (..) but we can offer attractive alternatives to inhabitants, such as workshops and events that are free and open to all.’
Pageblank, however, reacts: ‘At google, nothing is ever for free. Coffee has to be paid for with personal data’.
