Google is in the news again. The government has now informed the court reviewing the settlement with publishers and other copyright owners that it is formally investigating whether the terms violate the antitrust act. A court hearing on the settlement is set for Oct. 7, at which the Justice Department can present "its views orally at that time."

The New York Times says, "The settlement would give Google the right to display the books online, and to profit from them by selling access to individual titles and by selling subscriptions to its entire collection to libraries and other institutions. Revenue would be shared among Google, authors and publishers."

The agreement is a good bit more complex than that. Google has established a website for the first time reader link here and another with all the questions you would ever want to ask and explaining what it is doing and how that will change in the future here. Separately, just the portion of interest to copyright holders, 40 pages long but now one page, entitled "If You Are A Book Author, Book Publisher Or Other Person Who Owns A Copyright In Books Or Other Writings," is link here. Finally, the whole agreement and the 16 PDF's attached, is here.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation gives a good short analysis of the issues as it sees them link here. Google Search itself lists more than 12 million websites. Anybody expect a quick outcome?