Google tells EU online books make Web democratic

Google defended its scanning and publishing of millions of books online on Monday by saying the project was making finding information on the Web more democratic. The Californian company struck a deal with author and publisher groups in the United States earlier this year, allowing it to copy books for the Internet. But the agreement has been criticized and come under the gaze of the U.S. Justice Department because it does not say what Google might charge libraries, for example. Some of them fear the service will become an expensive must-have. Dan Clancy, architect of the Google program, told a hearing at the European Commission, which is the European Union's executive body, that the group hoped to allow Web surfers to find out-of-print books.