Google wins the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication

Google wins the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication
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By h.b. - Jun 11, 2008 - 6:01 PM

The Google home page in Spain.

The decision has raised more than a few eyebrows

This year’s Prince of Asturias prize for Communication has been awarded controversially to Google. The statutes of the award say it can be granted to ‘a person, a working team or institution’, but this year it is an internet search engine which gets the prize.

After spending a great deal of time deliberating the choice, the jury finally agreed on Google after a reported seven rounds of voting, ahead of the journalist Manuel Leguineche, the rival finalist and a Spaniard to boot.

The decision, worth 50,000 € to Google, has been criticised by many, such as the President of the Madrid Press Association, Fernando González Urbaneja, who considered the choice of Google had a ‘hollywood air’, although he did not deny that the search engine was an important phenomenon.

The decision has also been criticised by others who point out that the search engine has legal cases open with several media regarding allegations of breaking intellectual property rights. It also allegedly acted in favour of censorship in China two years ago.

Another beaten candidate this year was the British naturist David Attenborough.

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