9 ms·

Google may shut down its news service in Europe

60 points by visitednews 8y ago

romanovcode 8y ago
And nothing of value would be lost.
CaptainZapp 8y ago
We can certainly argue if the "link tax" is a good idea. Google, however, playing the hurt and wounded entity because they're no more able to leech "free" content to make a killing is, well, not very plausible. Don't want to provide EU users with Google News? Well, good bye and good riddance.
- vetinari 8y ago
  As a fellow European I think that Google shutting down it's news service for EU is a good thing, but for entirely different reason that yours. Many of these news services do not have the audience, they are getting it from Google. It is nonsensical, that you would bring the eyeballs, and have to pay for the privilege. Google should them deny any promotion or traffic, let them stand on their own feet.
  - dbmyh 8y ago
    >Many of these news services do not have the audience, they are getting it from Google I don't understand. Where are they supposed to be getting the audience from? Do you consider clicks from Google to be worthless? Are clicks from Facebook any better?
    - Brotkrumen 8y ago
      He means that smaller publishers don't have a brand yet where people just browse directly to their site. Those smaller publishers get a disproportionate share of views when one of their article trends on google news.
      - mcv 8y ago
        I guess the only solution for news sites now is massive mergers into a handful of news giants that do have the brand name to stand on their own without needing links from aggregators. Of course it would help a lot if they also dramatically revised the way they offer their content on the internet. Many news sites are rather awful.
      - candiodari 8y ago
        Look at their financial reports. Unless by "smaller" you mean 99.5% or more of them, you're inaccurate. The only news services that would survive this regulation are the public/subsidized ones, pretty much. Maybe that's exactly the goal: eliminate independent press.
    - vetinari 8y ago
      Exactly opposite. They are getting their traffic from aggregators (does not matter whether Google, Facebook or anyone else), they do not have brands with big enough recognition to stand on their own. In the eshop part of the web, there are price aggregators and the eshops pay them for the traffic they are getting, i.e. exactly opposite as the news publishers demand. It would be nonsense, if the eshops demanded that the aggregators pay them, because they make use of data of their sortiment or whatever. Even Amazon pays for the referrals, it is not being paid by the referrals for the privilege of being one. It was always that he, who brings the customers, is getting paid for that. Not vice-versa.
- calgoo 8y ago
  As someone living in Spain i have been without the Google News service for several years now and personally i don't mind at all. I just consume less news, and when there is something important its just one search away (or just going directly to one of the local papers website).
  - sharpneli 8y ago
    Doesn’t this validate Googles point. You are visiting less thus bringing the news sites less page views and thus less ad income.
    - mike22223333 8y ago
      No. This means less click bait. Ad revenue is a zero sum game mostly. The shit news site are no longer able to clickbait in Google news. More share of money goes to publishers despite less traffic. Clicbaiters lose.
      - dmortin 8y ago
        People keep searching for news with Google, the clickbait is still there for google searches.
- endymi0n 8y ago
  Google won't lose much from this, the reaction was entirely forseeable. I'm much more worried about aggregators acting in the EU and having no eternal fountain of revenue like Adsense to withdraw back to. Now that the regulation would finally be there, a giant swarm of rent seeking publishers will move on to these local players in order to extract at least some revenue from someone, potentially killing a whole industry. I'm running an aggregator and just the administration effort and legal exposure of being forced to make a deal with every single "content owner" out there (for giving them free traffic in the first place) would make me consider to shut down completely in the EU.
- mcv 8y ago
  What is Google leeching here exactly? They're providing a free service: driving traffic to news sites. If they have to pay for providing that free service, of course they're going to stop doing it. Apparently the EU thinks news sites are sufficiently well known to not need Google for traffic. Keep in mind that Google News doesn't show ads.
- emayljames 8y ago
  And is hopefully a death knell to their awful amp standard. I see amp as Google's play (pun) to shape how the WWW works, in a lop-sided, selfish manner.
- comboy 8y ago
  I really dislike many things about Google lately. But I still would rather have their services instead of EU regulation. We had quite a few experiments through out the history where central entity could decide what's best for citizens. Those did not end well. So how about, if you don't like Google News, just don't use it. You don't need any EU regulation for that.
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    I rather have democratically elected entites decide how to regulate than tech giants deciding what not to regulate. The "just don't use it" doesn't cut it. I don't use Facebook (or any of their products). It still very much affects - and has a direct impact on my life. Edit : Added paragraph 2
    - comboy 8y ago
      Can you elaborate on FB having direct impact on your life? I mean BMW has some impact on your life even if you don't drive them, but I'm guessing you have something more specific in mind.
      - CaptainZapp 8y ago
        There are so many examples: Let's begin with shadow profiles of non users. Despite the fact that I didn't sign up they still store my data and track me. Facebook being abused as a conduit to manipulate elections and as means for nefarious propaganda concerns all of us. You don't need to be a Facebook user to be directly impacted by the toxic effects of populism on society fostered by them Further, it's a poison to society by allowing hate speech (but not pictures of breast feeding mothers) to be disseminated on a massive scale As a human being it concerns me when Facebook is used to support genocide and to aid an abet the silencing of critics in countries like Cambodia or The Philippines As a Jew I feel personally attacked when the highest echelons of the company blow the most vile, antisemtic dog whistles currently available I believe that all those things (and much more) affects my life a lot more than people driving BMWs.
- tomp 8y ago
  Each individual publisher can choose to not have Google "leech" their content [1]. The EU government forcing this on the market/population isn't very good governance. [1] https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/93977?hl=en&vid=0-1480790971667-1542797696930 https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/9397...
  - emayljames 8y ago
    Then again, it is a bad thing that a megacorp can run a news service that has no creation itself (leeching) and decides who is shown and forcing websites to use their awful amp websites.
- knorker 8y ago
  > leech "free" content Google News doesn't (in itself) have revenue. No ads. If you'd said Google Search or Youtube, then that's a completely different thing. Those are multi-billion dollar products, and I suppose your argument is that Google doesn't add any value between site/youtuber and customer? But Google News? It's one thing to have a service for free. It's another to force someone to pay to run a free service. "Playing the hurt"? I have seen zero indication of that. All I've seen is "Shrug, if that's the rules you make then a product like this cannot exist. We'll shut it, then". I don't use Google News, myself. > Well, good bye and good riddance. People who like this kind of product (that now cannot exist) and news sites, would disagree. E.g. see what happened in Germany when the link tax was introduced. You may not like it, but users (clearly… I mean they used it) and news sites do. And now it's a thing that can't exist in the EU.
  - efdee 8y ago
    News sites complain about Google stealing their content, which is why the law came into existance in the first place. Which is, of course, ridiculous, because they profit a lot from the eyeballs sent their way by Google. It's just plain greed, and I'd rather have Google shut down their news service instead of getting some unholy exemption which would stiffle innovation in the news gathering area.
    - simias 8y ago
      Even though I'm not in favor of this law I understand the point of view of the news outlets. Basically it's a team effort: Google aggregates the news which gives users a convenient entry point to access articles that interests them from a variety of websites but of course that wouldn't be possible if journalists didn't write the articles in the first place. Google wins by having more people use their services and log into their Google account, news outlets wins by reaching a larger audience through Google. But then, from the point of view of the news outlets, the benefits from this arrangement are not split fairly because they're the ones who do the hard and expensive part (writing the articles, investigating etc...) while Google merely links to them while making money from ads and collecting user data. If they're lucky the user may end up clicking on the headline to actually access the website, and then if they don't have an ad blocker they may generate a couple of ad impressions. Basically they're left with the scraps even though they're the one who actually did most of the actual work. Now I think the link tax is a bad solution to this issue but I also think it's not completely fair to call news agencies "greedy" in a blanket statement. The business model of journalism in the internet era is still very much an open question.
- dingaling 8y ago
  There is no 'link tax'. You can paste a target URL anywhere you like along with descriptive words. What there is: a restriction on quoting from the article.
- dingaling 8y ago
  There is no 'link tax'. You can paste a target URL anywhere you like along with descriptive words. What there is: a restriction on quoting from the article. That will hurt automated aggregators, certainly. But not hand-curated sites or blogs.
  - dghf 8y ago
    > There is no 'link tax'. You can paste a target URL anywhere you like along with descriptive words. What there is: a restriction on quoting from the article. Well, that depends on what is meant by "quoting from the article". The EFF believes that the proposed wording is so vague that some bare URLs might be covered: > The Directive is extremely vague on what defines a "link" or a "news story" and implies that an "excerpt" consists of more than one single word from a news-story (many URLs contain more than a single word from the headline). Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eus-link-tax-will-kill-open-access-and-creative-commons-news https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eus-link-tax-will-kill...
- tim333 8y ago
  >good bye and good riddance. I use it all the time and would miss it. I have no desire for the EU to regulate useful, free, non profit services out of my life.
  - llampx 8y ago
    This is not a scrappy startup though, this is Google. They are anything but non profit.
- Kiro 8y ago
  Speak for yourself. For me, Google News shutting down in Europe would be a disaster.
josefx 8y ago
Is this related to the news shown on the start screen of the android chrome? If so I will miss it - not at all. I think I can count the times I saw something interesting in that list on one hand and I never found an option to get rid of it.
- code_duck 8y ago
  No, it’s not related to that.
dbmyh 8y ago
I hate both Google and the media, so this is great news.
mhomde 8y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hacker News would technically be affected by the same Link tax. It would probably not be enforced but still. It's such a stupid idea and I really lose hope about the future of a free internet when I see stuff like this. Hopefully saner minds will prevail
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  > It's such a stupid idea and I really lose hope about the future of a free internet I really lose hope for the EU, not a free internet.
  - laumars 8y ago
    There EU is generally a force for good. Please don't let a couple of bad policies cloud your judgement against all of the good work that the wider organisation does.
    - fgheorghe 8y ago
      A force for good indeed, while Germany and to some extent France have regulations in their favour enforced, the rest of the EU is slowly ground into a slow death.
    - nkkollaw 8y ago
      > There EU is generally a force for good It might have been, I don't think it is anymore. I think they're passed that, and their focus in now on moving power from sovereign nations into the EU. In addition to that, they've become corrupt enough to favor record companies instead of the citizens of the countries that are part of the EU (another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18501825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18501825).
      - laumars 8y ago
        Here in the UK, a great many deprived areas were completely ignored by our own government whereas the EU helped fund regeneration on those areas. The EU has also funded flood prevention programs in the UK while our own government has done naff all aside appearing for rhetoric soundbites. Much of what the EU does goes unsung. And a lot of stuff gets completely misreported too (eg the whole bent bananas meme). In fact this has become so common that there's a coined term for it: euromyth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth)
jesuslop 8y ago
goodbye and farewell
mrunkel 8y ago
As an EU citizen, I'll go against the grain here and say that I will indeed miss this service. The idea that google has made "a killing" of news.google.com is just silly. There are, I'm sure, related benefits, but they don't serve ads on those pages, they simply aggregate and sort various news services. As someone who appreciates getting different viewpoints, having the articles sorted like this was a great value. This is a classic case of the news media shooting itself in the foot. To me, this akin to restaurants saying that concierge desks need to pay them to refer customers to them. Just ridiculous.
- exodust 8y ago
  If we're talking about news.google.com, then yeh it's ridiculous. That site is just headline links. It's not "content", it's a list of text links. The foundation of the web is text links. So the EU wants to charge for HTML links. Struggling to see the logic there. Users click those links, read the story content, and end up on the news website. That is the fair transaction right there, no money needed. Unless I'm missing something? Is this about the web or app? I don't use the google app so not sure if clicking links just opens a web view in app?
  - malmsteen 8y ago
    Well its different when the value of the page is precisely the title + summary of other pages. That said its a bit of a last attempt from newspaper to get money when news nowadays is pretty much free
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - O1111OOO 8y ago
    > The foundation of the web is text links. So the EU wants to charge for HTML links. What's scary here is how this would effect other aggregators of news: HN, reddit, automated online RSS Feeds, etc. These kinds of overreaching regulations don't happen in a bubble, they trickle down to everyone. So the question: why is Google specifically targeted? Is this part of the Big Tech Backlash[0] - specifically... the flow and control of information? Or is it more like a Netflix thing, where I think that 'The Old Guard' News Orgs may be overvaluing themselves. Also, it was my understanding that News Organizations voluntarily submitted and made an effort to be compliant with Google News[1]. That is, Google News doesn't display news source data without permission (I think they did early on?). I'm certain that if Google (or other large-scale News aggregator) required permission to be listed, most news orgs (enough to make a viable product) would happily comply. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22The%22+%22EU%22+Tech+Backlash&norw=1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22The%22+%22EU%22+Tech+Backlash&n... [1] https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/40787?hl=en https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/4078...
tuxt 8y ago
So, HN should pay "techgraph" for linking this article?
- emayljames 8y ago
  HN is not a megacorp that forces websites to use an awful amp version of their own websites. HN only provide a simple link and heading.
  - tuxt 8y ago
    The law even mentioned "amp"? How specific!
fybe 8y ago
Some random site says that another site reported and doesn't link it to the original article? Is this them getting ready for the link tax? So now we will see these "news" sites that regurgitate other peoples news omit links to the original articles as to not pay this "tax"? Will this actually be beneficial in the long run? Omitting core internet functionality, linking, because it costs extra. Only help to spread fake news as links to sources and references will be omitted. Or is there some clause that only tech giants will be taxed? How do you define a giant then. Certainly google but what about Reddit? Or Hacker News? Don't have answers to any of these questions but until we know more I'll be very skeptical of this "link tax"
otikik 8y ago
It has been gone from Spain for some time now. I thought I was going to miss it, but honestly, I don't. I also thought that the news services would crumble and die. They didn't, but their news quality took a dive. I can't say whether this is causality or just correlation.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > I also thought that the news services would crumble and die. They didn't “The [Spanish] law...cost publishers €10 million, or about $10.9 million, which would fall disproportionately on smaller publishers” and led to “smaller Spanish aggregators, such as Planeta Ludico, NiagaRank, InfoAliment, and Multifriki shut[ting] down” [1]. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-spains-google-tax-has-been-a-disaster-for-publishers/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201...
  - otikik 8y ago
    When I said "news services" I meant publishers, not aggregators. I didn't know or use any of those aggregators you mentioned.
- collyw 8y ago
  I do miss it when there is a specific news story (usually fairly niche or local) that i am looking for. Duckduck go has a similar service that does work in Spain, but the search isn't as good.
Brotkrumen 8y ago
I wonder who those same publishers are going to blame when their visitors drop by 13% as they did in spain. But maybe that's intended, as smaller publishers would suffer the most the large publishers would finally be able to decide what is news and how it's to be distributed. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study-spains-google-tax-news-shows-how-much-damage-it-has-done.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study...
- mike22223333 8y ago
  Too many small publishers are not good. The small publishers which gain revenue because of Google are too dependent on it. Hence they cannot criticize Google else indirectly their SEO is affected. Larger independent publishers have to compete with smaller clickbaity non professional publishers and also have to serve clickbait. Because Ad revenue is mostly a zero sum game. The smaller publishers who do not have many journalists just make clickbait titles eat into professionals who are also dependent on Ads. It is in Google's interest to have multiple small publishers instead of few large publishers, because Google can blackmail the smaller ones more easily and multiple publisher speaking against something is more difficult then few grouped publishers. If the publishers and Google's interest clash, it is a good thing for the readers. If they align, it is a very good thing for Google, a little good for publishers and bad for readers.
  - Brotkrumen 8y ago
    every publisher is "small" at first. This is about not rocking the boat for larger publishers by better, maybe more professional, upstarts. The argument about click-baity titles is relevant to whether a publisher is small or large. Every large publisher now has a yellow press sub-brand that just pushes out trash with click-baits.
    - mike22223333 8y ago
      Larger ad dependent publishers have to push out click bait because smaller publishers push it out. If larger publishers would not do clickbait if smaller publishers do, they go out of business, because smaller ones steal the share of money. Ad revenue is a zero sum game.
excalliburbd 8y ago
And another one gone, and another one gone Another one bites the dust
emayljames 8y ago
For anybody, (like myself), who cannot stand Google's amp version of popular website's, try this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
don't they mean not providing European sourced news globally, for example if they provide something from Der Spiegel to US users wouldn't that be hit with the link tax?
slivym 8y ago
I've got to say - I found it REALLY difficult to find an authoritative or trustworthy source on what the link tax is. From my understanding here's the rub: there are two definitions. One definition is you'd have to pay a publisher if you link to their article whilst quoting it. That's what the opponents are saying. This seems disingenuous, since it's the quoting the article that triggers the tax - no the link. The supporters characterize it as: If you rip off a significant part of a copyright work the publisher can charge you since you're taking their copyrighted work (whether you link to them or not). Now people are saying sites link Google News would be affected because they list lots of news sites quotes with links to the source. I would've thought it was pretty obvious however, if the aggregater quotes enough then there's no point to click through and therefore the revenue accrues to Google rather than the publisher. This seems fine to me -- there should be a charge for that behaviour. What's more it actually seems self-levelling. If Google doesn't quote too much and people click through then there's no incentive for the publisher to charge Google for the content since they're generating demand and charging Google would cause them to be de-listed. So let's move on, why is Google complaining? Well it seems to me that it's actually in Google's interests to be able to leech off these publishers by stealing their content wholesale and this would prevent that, and apparently they think whining publicly is a reasonable strategy. It's not.
- ggggtez 8y ago
  I believe the root complaint is the link shows the "Title", a small snippet, and/or a thumbnailed image. The concern is that it's a law essentially designed to punish large companies for essentially doing what the internet is built to do: link to other sites. To not have any snippets and just display raw URL links would be to essentially go back to the early 90's in terms of user experience. Edit: Also, arguably, the headline itself is a quote. How can you charge someone for quoting something newsworthy? That seems to be the very definition of fair use.
Jedi72 8y ago
People are pointing out that Google doesn't serve ads on Google news, and that they drive clicks to news sites, like this is some kind of huge favor. Its not, its strategy. Google wants to be the choke-point for every page lookup on the web. They have the stats on what people search and news is obviously a big one, so they provide services like this to put a moat around that sweet sweet ad revenue that might leak away if users were to ever use anything other than Google as the first thing they open in a browser.
p2t2p 8y ago
I have very much hope that Google shutdowns really big things in Europe eventually, things like YouTube, maybe some parts of Android and stuff. I'm very curious if it'll cause governments or business to crawl and ask for mercy or if it'll lead to Google replacements emerging in Europe. In China, Google's exodus provided a way to emerge multitude of local services which make me think that what Google does is not a rocket science and other can do it as well, there is just no incentive. Anyway, that's just random thoughts, it would be really interesting to see what would happen if Google left Europe in a big way.
- Jyaif 8y ago
  There is already a youtube "replacement" from Europe: Dailymotion, and it's absolutely terrible. They are only surviving by hosting copyrighted content and bombarding it with Unskippable ads.
adrr 8y ago
It may actually help the large subscription news sites. If all the news aggregators went away, I'd be more likely to pay for news from a reputable publisher to curate my news for me.
sbhn 8y ago
The link tax is an end to organic search results. You want to be found on google, then you’ll need to buy clicks using adwords. Google wins
throw2016 8y ago
This seems more like an empty threat and a bargaining position. If they wanted to shut down they would, not leak to the media incessantly about their intentions. Why are they pushing amp on publishers if this content doesn't matter to Google? This is extremely self serving and then trying to play innocent is disingenuous and predatory. There are no principles at stake here, only the exploitative business interests of a monopolistic business. The standard PR playbook of misinformation, lobbying, 'think tanks' and and 'helpful' opinion pieces is being rolled out, which is the predictable reaction of any well resourced interest hellbent on getting their their way.
knbknb 8y ago
Is it the content-preview (however small), the content-gathering or the linking that will cost money? Google could (re-)write the headlines and micro-summaries themselves (using machine-learning technologies) and just provide links, without copying anything from elsewhere for previewing purposes. Embedding no snippets and thumbnails at all from the media-/publisher websites would turn Google News into a text-only site, making it a lot less appealing to the audience.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
VikingCoder 8y ago
The phone book is listing my business number, and they're not paying me?!? Outrage! The phone book should have to pay me to list my number! <completely silent phone> Oh, wait...
r721 8y ago
Original source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/18/google-news-may-shut-over-eu-plans-to-charge-tax-for-links https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/18/google-ne...
Jyaif 8y ago
Would the Apple News widget shown on iOS also be affected by this?
- visitednews 8y ago
  Don't know as it is still unclear, how much "link tax" is going to affect the newsstand, but there is a less chance of Apple news to get banned as apple is paying to the publisher for publishing their content on Apple news.

60 points by visitednews 8y ago

And nothing of value would be lost.

We can certainly argue if the "link tax" is a good idea. Google, however, playing the hurt and wounded entity because they're no more able to leech "free" content to make a killing is, well, not very plausible. Don't want to provide EU users with Google News? Well, good bye and good riddance.

vetinari 8y ago
As a fellow European I think that Google shutting down it's news service for EU is a good thing, but for entirely different reason that yours. Many of these news services do not have the audience, they are getting it from Google. It is nonsensical, that you would bring the eyeballs, and have to pay for the privilege. Google should them deny any promotion or traffic, let them stand on their own feet.
- dbmyh 8y ago
  >Many of these news services do not have the audience, they are getting it from Google I don't understand. Where are they supposed to be getting the audience from? Do you consider clicks from Google to be worthless? Are clicks from Facebook any better?
  - Brotkrumen 8y ago
    He means that smaller publishers don't have a brand yet where people just browse directly to their site. Those smaller publishers get a disproportionate share of views when one of their article trends on google news.
    - mcv 8y ago
      I guess the only solution for news sites now is massive mergers into a handful of news giants that do have the brand name to stand on their own without needing links from aggregators. Of course it would help a lot if they also dramatically revised the way they offer their content on the internet. Many news sites are rather awful.
    - candiodari 8y ago
      Look at their financial reports. Unless by "smaller" you mean 99.5% or more of them, you're inaccurate. The only news services that would survive this regulation are the public/subsidized ones, pretty much. Maybe that's exactly the goal: eliminate independent press.
  - vetinari 8y ago
    Exactly opposite. They are getting their traffic from aggregators (does not matter whether Google, Facebook or anyone else), they do not have brands with big enough recognition to stand on their own. In the eshop part of the web, there are price aggregators and the eshops pay them for the traffic they are getting, i.e. exactly opposite as the news publishers demand. It would be nonsense, if the eshops demanded that the aggregators pay them, because they make use of data of their sortiment or whatever. Even Amazon pays for the referrals, it is not being paid by the referrals for the privilege of being one. It was always that he, who brings the customers, is getting paid for that. Not vice-versa.
calgoo 8y ago
As someone living in Spain i have been without the Google News service for several years now and personally i don't mind at all. I just consume less news, and when there is something important its just one search away (or just going directly to one of the local papers website).
- sharpneli 8y ago
  Doesn’t this validate Googles point. You are visiting less thus bringing the news sites less page views and thus less ad income.
  - mike22223333 8y ago
    No. This means less click bait. Ad revenue is a zero sum game mostly. The shit news site are no longer able to clickbait in Google news. More share of money goes to publishers despite less traffic. Clicbaiters lose.
    - dmortin 8y ago
      People keep searching for news with Google, the clickbait is still there for google searches.
endymi0n 8y ago
Google won't lose much from this, the reaction was entirely forseeable. I'm much more worried about aggregators acting in the EU and having no eternal fountain of revenue like Adsense to withdraw back to. Now that the regulation would finally be there, a giant swarm of rent seeking publishers will move on to these local players in order to extract at least some revenue from someone, potentially killing a whole industry. I'm running an aggregator and just the administration effort and legal exposure of being forced to make a deal with every single "content owner" out there (for giving them free traffic in the first place) would make me consider to shut down completely in the EU.
mcv 8y ago
What is Google leeching here exactly? They're providing a free service: driving traffic to news sites. If they have to pay for providing that free service, of course they're going to stop doing it. Apparently the EU thinks news sites are sufficiently well known to not need Google for traffic. Keep in mind that Google News doesn't show ads.
emayljames 8y ago
And is hopefully a death knell to their awful amp standard. I see amp as Google's play (pun) to shape how the WWW works, in a lop-sided, selfish manner.
comboy 8y ago
I really dislike many things about Google lately. But I still would rather have their services instead of EU regulation. We had quite a few experiments through out the history where central entity could decide what's best for citizens. Those did not end well. So how about, if you don't like Google News, just don't use it. You don't need any EU regulation for that.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  I rather have democratically elected entites decide how to regulate than tech giants deciding what not to regulate. The "just don't use it" doesn't cut it. I don't use Facebook (or any of their products). It still very much affects - and has a direct impact on my life. Edit : Added paragraph 2
  - comboy 8y ago
    Can you elaborate on FB having direct impact on your life? I mean BMW has some impact on your life even if you don't drive them, but I'm guessing you have something more specific in mind.
    - CaptainZapp 8y ago
      There are so many examples: Let's begin with shadow profiles of non users. Despite the fact that I didn't sign up they still store my data and track me. Facebook being abused as a conduit to manipulate elections and as means for nefarious propaganda concerns all of us. You don't need to be a Facebook user to be directly impacted by the toxic effects of populism on society fostered by them Further, it's a poison to society by allowing hate speech (but not pictures of breast feeding mothers) to be disseminated on a massive scale As a human being it concerns me when Facebook is used to support genocide and to aid an abet the silencing of critics in countries like Cambodia or The Philippines As a Jew I feel personally attacked when the highest echelons of the company blow the most vile, antisemtic dog whistles currently available I believe that all those things (and much more) affects my life a lot more than people driving BMWs.
tomp 8y ago
Each individual publisher can choose to not have Google "leech" their content [1]. The EU government forcing this on the market/population isn't very good governance. [1] https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/93977?hl=en&vid=0-1480790971667-1542797696930 https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/9397...
- emayljames 8y ago
  Then again, it is a bad thing that a megacorp can run a news service that has no creation itself (leeching) and decides who is shown and forcing websites to use their awful amp websites.
knorker 8y ago
> leech "free" content Google News doesn't (in itself) have revenue. No ads. If you'd said Google Search or Youtube, then that's a completely different thing. Those are multi-billion dollar products, and I suppose your argument is that Google doesn't add any value between site/youtuber and customer? But Google News? It's one thing to have a service for free. It's another to force someone to pay to run a free service. "Playing the hurt"? I have seen zero indication of that. All I've seen is "Shrug, if that's the rules you make then a product like this cannot exist. We'll shut it, then". I don't use Google News, myself. > Well, good bye and good riddance. People who like this kind of product (that now cannot exist) and news sites, would disagree. E.g. see what happened in Germany when the link tax was introduced. You may not like it, but users (clearly… I mean they used it) and news sites do. And now it's a thing that can't exist in the EU.
- efdee 8y ago
  News sites complain about Google stealing their content, which is why the law came into existance in the first place. Which is, of course, ridiculous, because they profit a lot from the eyeballs sent their way by Google. It's just plain greed, and I'd rather have Google shut down their news service instead of getting some unholy exemption which would stiffle innovation in the news gathering area.
  - simias 8y ago
    Even though I'm not in favor of this law I understand the point of view of the news outlets. Basically it's a team effort: Google aggregates the news which gives users a convenient entry point to access articles that interests them from a variety of websites but of course that wouldn't be possible if journalists didn't write the articles in the first place. Google wins by having more people use their services and log into their Google account, news outlets wins by reaching a larger audience through Google. But then, from the point of view of the news outlets, the benefits from this arrangement are not split fairly because they're the ones who do the hard and expensive part (writing the articles, investigating etc...) while Google merely links to them while making money from ads and collecting user data. If they're lucky the user may end up clicking on the headline to actually access the website, and then if they don't have an ad blocker they may generate a couple of ad impressions. Basically they're left with the scraps even though they're the one who actually did most of the actual work. Now I think the link tax is a bad solution to this issue but I also think it's not completely fair to call news agencies "greedy" in a blanket statement. The business model of journalism in the internet era is still very much an open question.
dingaling 8y ago
There is no 'link tax'. You can paste a target URL anywhere you like along with descriptive words. What there is: a restriction on quoting from the article.
dingaling 8y ago
There is no 'link tax'. You can paste a target URL anywhere you like along with descriptive words. What there is: a restriction on quoting from the article. That will hurt automated aggregators, certainly. But not hand-curated sites or blogs.
- dghf 8y ago
  > There is no 'link tax'. You can paste a target URL anywhere you like along with descriptive words. What there is: a restriction on quoting from the article. Well, that depends on what is meant by "quoting from the article". The EFF believes that the proposed wording is so vague that some bare URLs might be covered: > The Directive is extremely vague on what defines a "link" or a "news story" and implies that an "excerpt" consists of more than one single word from a news-story (many URLs contain more than a single word from the headline). Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eus-link-tax-will-kill-open-access-and-creative-commons-news https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eus-link-tax-will-kill...
tim333 8y ago
>good bye and good riddance. I use it all the time and would miss it. I have no desire for the EU to regulate useful, free, non profit services out of my life.
- llampx 8y ago
  This is not a scrappy startup though, this is Google. They are anything but non profit.
Kiro 8y ago
Speak for yourself. For me, Google News shutting down in Europe would be a disaster.

josefx 8y ago

Is this related to the news shown on the start screen of the android chrome? If so I will miss it - not at all. I think I can count the times I saw something interesting in that list on one hand and I never found an option to get rid of it.

code_duck 8y ago
No, it’s not related to that.

dbmyh 8y ago

I hate both Google and the media, so this is great news.

mhomde 8y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hacker News would technically be affected by the same Link tax. It would probably not be enforced but still. It's such a stupid idea and I really lose hope about the future of a free internet when I see stuff like this. Hopefully saner minds will prevail

nkkollaw 8y ago
> It's such a stupid idea and I really lose hope about the future of a free internet I really lose hope for the EU, not a free internet.
- laumars 8y ago
  There EU is generally a force for good. Please don't let a couple of bad policies cloud your judgement against all of the good work that the wider organisation does.
  - fgheorghe 8y ago
    A force for good indeed, while Germany and to some extent France have regulations in their favour enforced, the rest of the EU is slowly ground into a slow death.
  - nkkollaw 8y ago
    > There EU is generally a force for good It might have been, I don't think it is anymore. I think they're passed that, and their focus in now on moving power from sovereign nations into the EU. In addition to that, they've become corrupt enough to favor record companies instead of the citizens of the countries that are part of the EU (another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18501825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18501825).
    - laumars 8y ago
      Here in the UK, a great many deprived areas were completely ignored by our own government whereas the EU helped fund regeneration on those areas. The EU has also funded flood prevention programs in the UK while our own government has done naff all aside appearing for rhetoric soundbites. Much of what the EU does goes unsung. And a lot of stuff gets completely misreported too (eg the whole bent bananas meme). In fact this has become so common that there's a coined term for it: euromyth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth)

jesuslop 8y ago

goodbye and farewell

mrunkel 8y ago

As an EU citizen, I'll go against the grain here and say that I will indeed miss this service. The idea that google has made "a killing" of news.google.com is just silly. There are, I'm sure, related benefits, but they don't serve ads on those pages, they simply aggregate and sort various news services. As someone who appreciates getting different viewpoints, having the articles sorted like this was a great value. This is a classic case of the news media shooting itself in the foot. To me, this akin to restaurants saying that concierge desks need to pay them to refer customers to them. Just ridiculous.

exodust 8y ago
If we're talking about news.google.com, then yeh it's ridiculous. That site is just headline links. It's not "content", it's a list of text links. The foundation of the web is text links. So the EU wants to charge for HTML links. Struggling to see the logic there. Users click those links, read the story content, and end up on the news website. That is the fair transaction right there, no money needed. Unless I'm missing something? Is this about the web or app? I don't use the google app so not sure if clicking links just opens a web view in app?
- malmsteen 8y ago
  Well its different when the value of the page is precisely the title + summary of other pages. That said its a bit of a last attempt from newspaper to get money when news nowadays is pretty much free
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- O1111OOO 8y ago
  > The foundation of the web is text links. So the EU wants to charge for HTML links. What's scary here is how this would effect other aggregators of news: HN, reddit, automated online RSS Feeds, etc. These kinds of overreaching regulations don't happen in a bubble, they trickle down to everyone. So the question: why is Google specifically targeted? Is this part of the Big Tech Backlash[0] - specifically... the flow and control of information? Or is it more like a Netflix thing, where I think that 'The Old Guard' News Orgs may be overvaluing themselves. Also, it was my understanding that News Organizations voluntarily submitted and made an effort to be compliant with Google News[1]. That is, Google News doesn't display news source data without permission (I think they did early on?). I'm certain that if Google (or other large-scale News aggregator) required permission to be listed, most news orgs (enough to make a viable product) would happily comply. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22The%22+%22EU%22+Tech+Backlash&norw=1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22The%22+%22EU%22+Tech+Backlash&n... [1] https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/40787?hl=en https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/4078...

tuxt 8y ago

So, HN should pay "techgraph" for linking this article?

emayljames 8y ago
HN is not a megacorp that forces websites to use an awful amp version of their own websites. HN only provide a simple link and heading.
- tuxt 8y ago
  The law even mentioned "amp"? How specific!

fybe 8y ago

Some random site says that another site reported and doesn't link it to the original article? Is this them getting ready for the link tax? So now we will see these "news" sites that regurgitate other peoples news omit links to the original articles as to not pay this "tax"? Will this actually be beneficial in the long run? Omitting core internet functionality, linking, because it costs extra. Only help to spread fake news as links to sources and references will be omitted. Or is there some clause that only tech giants will be taxed? How do you define a giant then. Certainly google but what about Reddit? Or Hacker News? Don't have answers to any of these questions but until we know more I'll be very skeptical of this "link tax"

otikik 8y ago

It has been gone from Spain for some time now. I thought I was going to miss it, but honestly, I don't. I also thought that the news services would crumble and die. They didn't, but their news quality took a dive. I can't say whether this is causality or just correlation.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> I also thought that the news services would crumble and die. They didn't “The [Spanish] law...cost publishers €10 million, or about $10.9 million, which would fall disproportionately on smaller publishers” and led to “smaller Spanish aggregators, such as Planeta Ludico, NiagaRank, InfoAliment, and Multifriki shut[ting] down” [1]. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-spains-google-tax-has-been-a-disaster-for-publishers/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201...
- otikik 8y ago
  When I said "news services" I meant publishers, not aggregators. I didn't know or use any of those aggregators you mentioned.
collyw 8y ago
I do miss it when there is a specific news story (usually fairly niche or local) that i am looking for. Duckduck go has a similar service that does work in Spain, but the search isn't as good.

Brotkrumen 8y ago

I wonder who those same publishers are going to blame when their visitors drop by 13% as they did in spain. But maybe that's intended, as smaller publishers would suffer the most the large publishers would finally be able to decide what is news and how it's to be distributed. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study-spains-google-tax-news-shows-how-much-damage-it-has-done.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study...

mike22223333 8y ago
Too many small publishers are not good. The small publishers which gain revenue because of Google are too dependent on it. Hence they cannot criticize Google else indirectly their SEO is affected. Larger independent publishers have to compete with smaller clickbaity non professional publishers and also have to serve clickbait. Because Ad revenue is mostly a zero sum game. The smaller publishers who do not have many journalists just make clickbait titles eat into professionals who are also dependent on Ads. It is in Google's interest to have multiple small publishers instead of few large publishers, because Google can blackmail the smaller ones more easily and multiple publisher speaking against something is more difficult then few grouped publishers. If the publishers and Google's interest clash, it is a good thing for the readers. If they align, it is a very good thing for Google, a little good for publishers and bad for readers.
- Brotkrumen 8y ago
  every publisher is "small" at first. This is about not rocking the boat for larger publishers by better, maybe more professional, upstarts. The argument about click-baity titles is relevant to whether a publisher is small or large. Every large publisher now has a yellow press sub-brand that just pushes out trash with click-baits.
  - mike22223333 8y ago
    Larger ad dependent publishers have to push out click bait because smaller publishers push it out. If larger publishers would not do clickbait if smaller publishers do, they go out of business, because smaller ones steal the share of money. Ad revenue is a zero sum game.

excalliburbd 8y ago

And another one gone, and another one gone Another one bites the dust

emayljames 8y ago

For anybody, (like myself), who cannot stand Google's amp version of popular website's, try this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

don't they mean not providing European sourced news globally, for example if they provide something from Der Spiegel to US users wouldn't that be hit with the link tax?

slivym 8y ago

I've got to say - I found it REALLY difficult to find an authoritative or trustworthy source on what the link tax is. From my understanding here's the rub: there are two definitions. One definition is you'd have to pay a publisher if you link to their article whilst quoting it. That's what the opponents are saying. This seems disingenuous, since it's the quoting the article that triggers the tax - no the link. The supporters characterize it as: If you rip off a significant part of a copyright work the publisher can charge you since you're taking their copyrighted work (whether you link to them or not). Now people are saying sites link Google News would be affected because they list lots of news sites quotes with links to the source. I would've thought it was pretty obvious however, if the aggregater quotes enough then there's no point to click through and therefore the revenue accrues to Google rather than the publisher. This seems fine to me -- there should be a charge for that behaviour. What's more it actually seems self-levelling. If Google doesn't quote too much and people click through then there's no incentive for the publisher to charge Google for the content since they're generating demand and charging Google would cause them to be de-listed. So let's move on, why is Google complaining? Well it seems to me that it's actually in Google's interests to be able to leech off these publishers by stealing their content wholesale and this would prevent that, and apparently they think whining publicly is a reasonable strategy. It's not.

ggggtez 8y ago
I believe the root complaint is the link shows the "Title", a small snippet, and/or a thumbnailed image. The concern is that it's a law essentially designed to punish large companies for essentially doing what the internet is built to do: link to other sites. To not have any snippets and just display raw URL links would be to essentially go back to the early 90's in terms of user experience. Edit: Also, arguably, the headline itself is a quote. How can you charge someone for quoting something newsworthy? That seems to be the very definition of fair use.

Jedi72 8y ago

People are pointing out that Google doesn't serve ads on Google news, and that they drive clicks to news sites, like this is some kind of huge favor. Its not, its strategy. Google wants to be the choke-point for every page lookup on the web. They have the stats on what people search and news is obviously a big one, so they provide services like this to put a moat around that sweet sweet ad revenue that might leak away if users were to ever use anything other than Google as the first thing they open in a browser.

p2t2p 8y ago

I have very much hope that Google shutdowns really big things in Europe eventually, things like YouTube, maybe some parts of Android and stuff. I'm very curious if it'll cause governments or business to crawl and ask for mercy or if it'll lead to Google replacements emerging in Europe. In China, Google's exodus provided a way to emerge multitude of local services which make me think that what Google does is not a rocket science and other can do it as well, there is just no incentive. Anyway, that's just random thoughts, it would be really interesting to see what would happen if Google left Europe in a big way.

Jyaif 8y ago
There is already a youtube "replacement" from Europe: Dailymotion, and it's absolutely terrible. They are only surviving by hosting copyrighted content and bombarding it with Unskippable ads.

adrr 8y ago

It may actually help the large subscription news sites. If all the news aggregators went away, I'd be more likely to pay for news from a reputable publisher to curate my news for me.

sbhn 8y ago

The link tax is an end to organic search results. You want to be found on google, then you’ll need to buy clicks using adwords. Google wins

throw2016 8y ago

This seems more like an empty threat and a bargaining position. If they wanted to shut down they would, not leak to the media incessantly about their intentions. Why are they pushing amp on publishers if this content doesn't matter to Google? This is extremely self serving and then trying to play innocent is disingenuous and predatory. There are no principles at stake here, only the exploitative business interests of a monopolistic business. The standard PR playbook of misinformation, lobbying, 'think tanks' and and 'helpful' opinion pieces is being rolled out, which is the predictable reaction of any well resourced interest hellbent on getting their their way.

knbknb 8y ago

Is it the content-preview (however small), the content-gathering or the linking that will cost money? Google could (re-)write the headlines and micro-summaries themselves (using machine-learning technologies) and just provide links, without copying anything from elsewhere for previewing purposes. Embedding no snippets and thumbnails at all from the media-/publisher websites would turn Google News into a text-only site, making it a lot less appealing to the audience.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

VikingCoder 8y ago

The phone book is listing my business number, and they're not paying me?!? Outrage! The phone book should have to pay me to list my number! <completely silent phone> Oh, wait...

r721 8y ago

Original source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/18/google-news-may-shut-over-eu-plans-to-charge-tax-for-links https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/18/google-ne...

Jyaif 8y ago

Would the Apple News widget shown on iOS also be affected by this?

visitednews 8y ago
Don't know as it is still unclear, how much "link tax" is going to affect the newsstand, but there is a less chance of Apple news to get banned as apple is paying to the publisher for publishing their content on Apple news.