Should Google Be Forced To Pay For News?

Barence writes "The Guardian Media group is asking the British government to investigate Google News and other aggregators, claiming they reap the benefit of content from news sites without contributing anything towards their costs. The Guardian claims the old argument that 'search engines and aggregators provide players like guardian.co.uk with traffic in return for the use of our content' doesn't hold water any more, and that it's 'heavily skewed' in Google's favour. It wants the government to explore new models that 'require fair acknowledgement of the value that our content creates, both on our own site (through advertising) and "at the edges" in the world of search and aggregation.'"

Comments

Re:robots.txt

[Anonymous Coward]

The article notes that opting-out would be online-suicide for the Guardian. Clearly what the Guardian needs is paid advertisements in its headlines. "Enjoy Coke While Gov Raises Taxes" "Fly Emirates to Escape Rainy Weather"

Re:I suggest an experiment

[Arancaytar]

I notice I skipped 4. This is easy to explain.

4.) should have been "Profit!" except that there is none, as far as the newspaper is concerned.

Re:Not us.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The INTERNET, and the Web on it...were never created with the purpose of generating revenue for companies.

! C...cuh....coah....COMMUNIST!!!

Re:OK

[morgan_greywolf]

I work for a newspaper. Trust me, they don't research.

So, what you're really saying is that when a journalist says "While researching for this story, we found out..." what he really means is "while I was sitting at the local pub having a couple of beers and lunch, some drunk guy shouted this out..."?

Re:So ask Google not to index you...

[oldhack]

"I don't envy them though, providing online news is a horrible way to try to earn revenue."

So true. I come here for comments, you know.

Re:Not us.

[nevillethedevil]

Thanks I'd love an omelette right about now