4 ms·

Essentially France has said Google, being a monopoly, is not allowed to refuse to provide this service. They must do it, they must pay for it.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> France has said Google, being a monopoly, is not allowed to refuse to provide this service If it’s not providing the service, it’s no longer a monopoly. Assuming this will survive European appeal, which I don’t, one could yank all resources and cap e.g. bandwidth to Google News France. The aim isn’t to cripple the product. It’s to limit costs on a statutorily lossmaking product.
- Reventlov 7y ago
  Well, the decision covers the fact google search is a monopoly. Not google news. Google, being in a monopoly position in terms of search, can forces newspaper to provide their data for free, which is unfair. If google wasn't in a monopoly (for search), it wouldn't be a problem. So, yes, indeed, Google can stop providing search for the whole France.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > Google, being in a monopoly position in terms of search, can forces newspaper to provide their data for free, which is unfair It should be able to just de-list news sources for French searchers. Again, I can’t see this surviving a non-French EU court. If it did, zeroing resources to crawling French news sites would be a reasonable response. All that said, this is a silly way to go about subsidising local news. If France wants its newspapers, subsidise them. Don’t force an American company to provide you with a service and then make them pay for it.
    - Reventlov 7y ago
      >If France wants its newspapers, subsidise them. It's already done, let's note.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - imgabe 7y ago
    The newspapers are providing their data for free to anyone who visits their website, assuming it's not behind a paywall. Google isn't forcing them to do that. If they want people to have to pay for it, make that a requirement of visiting the site.
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      Many do. However, then Google punishes their search rankings for having a paywall. Forcing them to offer their data for free if they want to show up in search.
      - CamperBob2 7y ago
        So, they should start their own news search engine. Problem solved.
      - imgabe 7y ago
        Then they should not be dependent on search traffic. The fact is, despite some politicians declaring it a fundamental right, the news does not provide enough value to most people for them to pay for it. There is an absolute glut of content out there, way way more than anybody wants or needs. Much of it is less than worthless, it's actually of negative value because it's designed to hijack your attention. Remove the infusion of ad money that is producing this, let it settle to the things that people are actually willing to pay for, and we'll all be better off.
      - droithomme 7y ago
        The newspapers should pay Google if they want to be listed.
      - zajio1am 7y ago
        As a search engine user i am glad for that, as websites behind paywall are useless for me. If i pay for a news site, i would go directly to it, and i would not care about hundreds of other paywalled results that i would not pay for.
  - droithomme 7y ago
    > the fact google search is a monopoly Except it's not. I never use Google, I use DuckDuckGo. If DDG fails I try Bing. I have google and facebook domains blocked from access in my system because I don't like their tracking. Lots of other people search without Google. Google is simply not a monopoly in the search game.
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      Google has over 90% of search market share in Europe. The statement that Google is a monopoly isn't really debatable. And the fact that you can use another search engine doesn't change the power Google has, because everyone else uses Google. So your website has to play by Google's rules if you want to be found.
      - droithomme 7y ago
        > The statement that Google is a monopoly isn't really debatable. OK, let's not debate. We'll just agree that the statement is empirically false.
        slavak 7y ago
        A monopoly is not _just_ a company that controls 100% of the market. If pure monopolies were the only kind the term referred to it would be all but useless. https://bizfluent.com/about-6601606-monopoly-economics-.html https://bizfluent.com/about-6601606-monopoly-economics-.html
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Udik 7y ago
Solution: keep running google news, but without the snippets. You search for news, you get a set of mute links to articles from various sources.
- neilparikh 7y ago
  According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843579 , the court forbid that as well.
- inetsee 7y ago
  That's what Google already did. The results include the article titles, but no longer include the snippets that expanded on the information in the title.
- panzagl 7y ago
  That was specifically denied by the ruling.
- georgyo 7y ago
  The ruling states they _must_ index, provide snippets, and pay. Google did remove the snippets, which hurt the news sites traffic, such is mostly Google referrals. This ruling makes it so they must index and pay.
- Talanes 7y ago
  Everyone keeps replying to tell you they were forbidden from doing that, but they weren't. They ran with that option PLUS sending out contracts to get the newspapers to license the photos and snippet content for free. It's the second part that the courts objected to.
zepto 7y ago
I don’t see that anywhere. It seems that they are free to completely stop showing news sites.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> France has said Google, being a monopoly, is not allowed to refuse to provide this service If it’s not providing the service, it’s no longer a monopoly. Assuming this will survive European appeal, which I don’t, one could yank all resources and cap e.g. bandwidth to Google News France. The aim isn’t to cripple the product. It’s to limit costs on a statutorily lossmaking product.

Reventlov 7y ago
Well, the decision covers the fact google search is a monopoly. Not google news. Google, being in a monopoly position in terms of search, can forces newspaper to provide their data for free, which is unfair. If google wasn't in a monopoly (for search), it wouldn't be a problem. So, yes, indeed, Google can stop providing search for the whole France.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > Google, being in a monopoly position in terms of search, can forces newspaper to provide their data for free, which is unfair It should be able to just de-list news sources for French searchers. Again, I can’t see this surviving a non-French EU court. If it did, zeroing resources to crawling French news sites would be a reasonable response. All that said, this is a silly way to go about subsidising local news. If France wants its newspapers, subsidise them. Don’t force an American company to provide you with a service and then make them pay for it.
  - Reventlov 7y ago
    >If France wants its newspapers, subsidise them. It's already done, let's note.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- imgabe 7y ago
  The newspapers are providing their data for free to anyone who visits their website, assuming it's not behind a paywall. Google isn't forcing them to do that. If they want people to have to pay for it, make that a requirement of visiting the site.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    Many do. However, then Google punishes their search rankings for having a paywall. Forcing them to offer their data for free if they want to show up in search.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      So, they should start their own news search engine. Problem solved.
    - imgabe 7y ago
      Then they should not be dependent on search traffic. The fact is, despite some politicians declaring it a fundamental right, the news does not provide enough value to most people for them to pay for it. There is an absolute glut of content out there, way way more than anybody wants or needs. Much of it is less than worthless, it's actually of negative value because it's designed to hijack your attention. Remove the infusion of ad money that is producing this, let it settle to the things that people are actually willing to pay for, and we'll all be better off.
    - droithomme 7y ago
      The newspapers should pay Google if they want to be listed.
    - zajio1am 7y ago
      As a search engine user i am glad for that, as websites behind paywall are useless for me. If i pay for a news site, i would go directly to it, and i would not care about hundreds of other paywalled results that i would not pay for.
- droithomme 7y ago
  > the fact google search is a monopoly Except it's not. I never use Google, I use DuckDuckGo. If DDG fails I try Bing. I have google and facebook domains blocked from access in my system because I don't like their tracking. Lots of other people search without Google. Google is simply not a monopoly in the search game.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    Google has over 90% of search market share in Europe. The statement that Google is a monopoly isn't really debatable. And the fact that you can use another search engine doesn't change the power Google has, because everyone else uses Google. So your website has to play by Google's rules if you want to be found.
    - droithomme 7y ago
      > The statement that Google is a monopoly isn't really debatable. OK, let's not debate. We'll just agree that the statement is empirically false.
      - slavak 7y ago
        A monopoly is not _just_ a company that controls 100% of the market. If pure monopolies were the only kind the term referred to it would be all but useless. https://bizfluent.com/about-6601606-monopoly-economics-.html https://bizfluent.com/about-6601606-monopoly-economics-.html
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Udik 7y ago

Solution: keep running google news, but without the snippets. You search for news, you get a set of mute links to articles from various sources.

neilparikh 7y ago
According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843579 , the court forbid that as well.
inetsee 7y ago
That's what Google already did. The results include the article titles, but no longer include the snippets that expanded on the information in the title.
panzagl 7y ago
That was specifically denied by the ruling.
georgyo 7y ago
The ruling states they _must_ index, provide snippets, and pay. Google did remove the snippets, which hurt the news sites traffic, such is mostly Google referrals. This ruling makes it so they must index and pay.
Talanes 7y ago
Everyone keeps replying to tell you they were forbidden from doing that, but they weren't. They ran with that option PLUS sending out contracts to get the newspapers to license the photos and snippet content for free. It's the second part that the courts objected to.

zepto 7y ago

I don’t see that anywhere. It seems that they are free to completely stop showing news sites.