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Google News Removes Belgian Newspaper

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lookit-all-them-words-not-there dept.

CaVi writes "Following a judicial action (link in French) by the 'French-speaking Belgian Association of the press,' Google.be has removed all the French-speaking press sites from its index, as can be seen by doing a search. The court order to Google is posted at Chilling Effects. In summary, the editors want a cut of the profit that Google News makes using their information. No such deal exists for the moment. Google has been ordered to remove all references, or pay one million Euros per day if it doesn't comply. Net effect: they removed all link to the sites, from Google News, but also from Google's search. Will Google become irrelevant in Belgian, and be replaced by MSN? Or will the newspapers, which gain from commercials, and thus net traffic, change their position when they'll see the drop in traffic that it is causing?" There's also a link to a Dutch news article on the subject; one of the key issues was evidently that some of what Google was carrying was no longer available on the newspaper's website itself, so rather then linking to the newspaper, Google was displaying it on their own.

2 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Block IPs? by daigu · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The suggestion to block the newspaper's IP address so they cannot use Google - pretty much defines evil. That kind of behavior is what makes Microsoft so loathed in this forum, and here you are suggesting they should do it. If they went that route, what's to stop them from using the same tactic in other situations? Imagine Google didn't like something the company you work for is doing and cut off your access to their email, search or whatever. How would you personally feel about it? Does this strike you as good business practice? You need to think a little further on this issue.

  2. Re:Don't worry its Belgium by N3TW4LK3R · · Score: 0, Redundant

    err... Belgium isn't exactly dull, but it is very small, so I can understand why it wouldn't show up on the news very often

    About the famous Belgians:

    Present:
    Eddy Merckx (5 times Tour de France winner)
    Kim Clijsters
    Justine Hénin
    Amélie Nothomb
    Thoots Thielemans
    Jaques Brel

    Legends:
    Father Damien (long time ago, but nevertheless)
    Ambiorix (even further in the past :) )

    Fictional:
    Hércule Poirot