In an otherwise completely derivative piece, The New York Times managed to eke out a response from Google on the ginning up of nationalist pique at the idea that the "Anglo" Google might become the arbiter of what gets published in its massive Google Print project. Said a European Google executive: "Our intent is in no way to impose one culture or another…

…Our intent is to offer the information responding to the priorities of users. And we are willing to support others, either as an active partner or with technical support. We are supportive of the French National Library and are ready to do anything to facilitate development of its expertise."

The executive said Google supports all moves - even those completely separate from its own - to put books on the web in all languages.

In an interesting side note, the executive mentioned that fears that Google's PageRank algorithm could itself push an American bias on the presentation of web content were unfounded, as Google's ranking tends to rely predominantly on democratic user responses and choices. But that market-oriented methodology may be exactly what some French nationalists abhor, interpreting popular market forces as British or American influences.