Sergey Brin is one of Google’s co-founders. In a New York Times Op/Ed piece, he defended the Google book settlement, what I have been referring to in these lines as The Deal. Naturally, he thinks the Deal is just great and everybody should think so too, even those scowling meanies at the Department of Justice, who keep bringing up these little, purely theoretical objections about monopoly and anti-trust and all. The parties are going back to the negotiating table in response to a large passel of criticisms and objections, hundreds of them, to see what they can do. It seems that nobody wants a trial, everybody wants an agreement, but just not this agreement. I’m not a Google-basher, but I do become more sceptical about an outfit as it grows, so while Brin’s OP was a very good piece of special pleading, I prefer to link to a story on The Resource Shelf which gives users both the Op/ed and some useful comments of the “yes, but” sort.