Article: Google Begins to Scale Back Its Scanning of Books From University Libraries

Reading the article, this text stood out to me:

Google isn't saying whether it has pulled back from its longstanding goal of collecting all of the world's knowledge. Some of its digitization efforts have shifted to Europe. Much of the company's public focus lately has been not on mass digitization but on how to use individuals' data to create more focused advertising and online browsing. Meanwhile, a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought against it by authors' and publishers' groups drags on. 

The company has been digitizing books since 2006 and converted millions of books to digital form. It could be that Google has hit a maturation point or it could be something else.  For example, has Google gotten what it needs out of this effort (whatever that might be)?  (There were rumors early on what why Google might be doing this work, e.g., making its search engine better or capturing more eyeballs on the Internet, and maybe those needs have been satisfied.)