Google accused of YouTube 'free ride'

Some of Europe's leading telecoms groups are squaring up for a fight with Google over what they claim is the free ride enjoyed by the technology company's YouTube video-sharing service.

Telefónica, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom all said Google should start paying them for carrying bandwidth-hungry content such as YouTube video over their networks. It underlines how Google's relationship with leading telecoms groups is becoming increasingly fractious, partly because YouTube video is fuelling an explosion of data traffic on their networks. Some European telecoms groups fear Google will reduce them to "dumb pipes" because the Internet search and advertising company pays the network operators little or nothing for carrying its content. To increase the pressure on Google, the telecoms groups are interested in finding common cause with content owners such as media companies, which get little or no money from the technology company when it aggregates their content on Google News.