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Brazilian Newspapers Leave Google News En Masse

Dupple writes "In light of the recent story regarding Google threatening a French media ban after France proposed that search engines should pay for content, it seems a similar thing is happening in Brazil, with numerous papers leaving Google News. The controversy fueled one of the most intense debates during the Inter American Press Association's 68th General Assembly, which took place from Oct. 12 to 16 in São Paulo. On one side of the debate were defenders of news companies' authoring rights, like German attorney Felix Stang, who said, 'platforms like Google's compete directly with newspapers and magazines because they work like home pages and use content from them.' On the other, Google representatives said their platform provides a way to make journalistic content available to more people. According to Marcel Leonardi, the company's public policies director, Google News channels a billion clicks to news sites around the world."

223 comments

  1. Let them by jeffy210 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They'll see what happens when their visits drop. People can't be expected to remember every paper that there is and go to each individual site when attempting to find a specific story. This will only be to the papers' detriment.

    --
    ------
    "And may your days be long upon the earth."
    1. Re:Let them by MozeeToby · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why don't they just put headlines and first paragraphs on one page and set robots.txt to allow search engines to index it, then put the full articles on a different page with indexing not allowed. Google's crawler would get the headline and synopsis and the papers would get advertising from everyone who was interested enough to read more than a few sentences.

    2. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too many people just hit their favorite news site (uol.com.br, yahoo.com.br, g1.com.br, globo.com, etc) and keep refreshing it.

      There is a huge fight for users between them, even with TV ads and everything.

    3. Re:Let them by verbatim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yep. Google doesn't show the entire article, they show enough content to drive viewers to the article. It's up to the individual sites to retain those visitors, not Google.

      Newspapers should be paying Google for the service of indexing and driving customers to them.

      --
      Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
    4. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously. Google should just shut Google News down for a day and let the newspapers see just how fucked they'll be.

    5. Re:Let them by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why don't they just put headlines and first paragraphs on one page and set robots.txt to allow search engines to index it, then put the full articles on a different page with indexing not allowed. Google's crawler would get the headline and synopsis and the papers would get advertising from everyone who was interested enough to read more than a few sentences.

      That's basically what Google does already: just puts headlines and 1-2 sentences from the start, with a link to TFA. The newspapers don't even want that much.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    6. Re:Let them by radiumsoup · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well, we certainly don't want fewer sources of opinion, so having them disappear entirely would not necessarily better for everyone... I think their effort is a good way to kick Google in the balls and encourage them to start paying the folks who make them legitimate in the first place.

      After all, if it weren't for the news outlets, Google would have nothing to link to (as far as news, anyway)

    7. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Because putting in the effort to find a technical solution is a lot harder than complaining to your politicians.

    8. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why don't they just put headlines and first paragraphs on one page....

      Have you actually *been* to news.google.com ??? Didn't think so.

      Google News is nothing more than an aggregator for news sites. They provide headline and first sentence and a link to the actual news site.

      What the news sites are bitching about is people go to google to look at what is happening instead of their main pages. News sites provide the food but they don't make the menu anymore and that is the problem.

    9. Re:Let them by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They'll see what happens when their visits drop. People can't be expected to remember every paper that there is and go to each individual site when attempting to find a specific story. This will only be to the papers' detriment.

      I suspect that, just as everyone is above average and thinks that their children are atypically cute, all the newspapers harbor the dream that they will beat the odds and get to be a 'Portal' for all those precious consumer eyeballs, just like Yahoo or AOL sometime before the turn of the millennium, rather than bleeding subscribers or contributing a sentence or two of scrapings to people's search results...

    10. Re:Let them by ByOhTek · · Score: 1

      It's funny they don't see search engines as a form of advertising.

      Or maybe they are clever and thinking "Hey! Let's have our advertisers pay us!"

      Honestly, let the papers do this. Those who don't will get more business and those that do can fuck off out of business, which seems win-win to me.

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
    11. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Seriously. Google should just shut Google News down for a day and let the newspapers see just how fucked they'll be.

      Seriously. If Google shut News own for a day, how much revenue would Google loose? They'd never do it, they need people clicking on placed ads. The papers never see any of that money. Google provides the News service for Google.

    12. Re:Let them by fredprado · · Score: 1

      Those people will keep doing what they did before and whatever happens in Google news is of little difference for them. On the other hand the people who used Google News and which are the target of this maneuver won't likely abandon Google News for the other news sites, as they think it will happen.

    13. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They should start paying website owners and creators too. If we didn't make websites, they would have nothing to link in their main search either. It is not like there is some mutual relationship that benefits both otherwise...

    14. Re:Let them by crazyjj · · Score: 2

      To me, the whole thing to me sounds really arrogant. "Our paper is so popular that we don't need Google!" Yeah, famous last words. If you're not on Google these days, you had may as well be invisible.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    15. Re:Let them by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      no Google should not pay. Google just show a headline and the first bit. The reader then clicks and goes to the website.
      Google is driving people to the site. If I had a business that could double your reader, you would gladly pay me.

      Google does it for free.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    16. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The papers never see any of that money. Google provides the News service for Google.

      Perhaps, but all of the traffic that Google funnels their way does provide the papers with income. This sounds like the papers are shooting themselves in the foot.

    17. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      we certainly don't want fewer sources of opinion

      I do. They can shove their opinions, just give me the facts and I'll make up my own opinions.

    18. Re:Let them by pmontra · · Score: 2

      Actually I think that big newspapers with recognized brands will get more page hits because they'll be the hubs people go to read news. Small news sites will suffer. On my country's google news page there are articles of sites I never heard about and I'll never remember if they get out of google news. But they are linked there and I click them as often as big news sites.

    19. Re:Let them by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      Indeed. To a large degree I don't even CARE what site news comes from. I'm just looking for some general info. Google News lets me find that via a search and that's all that matters. No matter how many leave, there will likely always be enough to provide what I need. That's part of the problem with news agencies anyways - aside from very local news they're all repeating the same information. There's WAY too much redundancy there to maintain in this day and age.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    20. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This, unfortunately, wouldn't solve their real problem. The way that news sites used to maintain profitability was through extended browsing of the site. A reader would go to the front page, browse through articles, and stay on the site for some time. With aggregate sites(the most notable being Google, so I'll continue to reference them, but other popular aggregators would have the same effects), readers are much more frequently finding a link to one article, reading it on the content creator's site, and then immediately leaving to find another article with Google. This gives extended views and additional add impressions to Google, but not to the actual content site.

      I'm not saying that fault is with Google, or that indexing should require compulsory payments, just putting forward the idea that the problem is more complicated then frequently thought. Aggregate sites do drive viewers to articles, but it may be that they are driving them in a way that is not profitable for the news sites themselves. This could be a problem for us, the consumers, if the content creators have to pare down their reporting staff, do less research, and/or provide less depth in order to cut costs and stay in business.

    21. Re:Let them by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Particularly when you boil the situation down to the most basic premise - people are still visiting their site. They're literally made at Google for making it too easy for people to find what they actually WANT from that site. They want the users to have to wade through their own poor interface for a given amount of time - seeing their ads - before they finally find the content.

      Forcing your customers into a more difficult path for your own benefit with no incentive to them will not work well. Never has, never will.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    22. Re:Let them by jkflying · · Score: 3, Informative

      They should pay Google on a per-click-through basis for the advertising, surely? After all, Google just provides a thumbnail, a headline and the first sentence.

      --
      Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
    23. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you serious? Searching for news content is less than 5% of google's bandwidth usage. They make more money off of ads for penis enlargement than they do off redirecting people to news articles. The newspapers need google infinitesimally more than google needs them.

    24. Re:Let them by jkflying · · Score: 1

      If the small sites stay on Google they will actually do better than before.

      --
      Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
    25. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously. If Google shut News own for a day, how much revenue would Google loose? They'd never do it, they need people clicking on placed ads.

      Google News has no ads, since it's a service that basically gets content from other sources, they can't profit from it with ads. No idea how they make money there.

    26. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Do you search for news? I don't. I end up on news sites because I search a topic and they have relevant information. I find it on Google. If not for Google most News sites, except a few local ones, would never be visited by me. The news organizations should PAY Google for the advertising.

    27. Re:Let them by chipschap · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No kidding. And newspapers wonder why they have declining fortunes. Then they fall back on the old answer: let's legislate / litigate a solution instead of tackling the real problem.

    28. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    29. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You talk like google is a monopoly that we HAVE to deal with.

      Guess what. They're not. People use google because they WANT to.

      People like to use google services. Theres billions of them. And in todays media that mass of users is worth a ton.
      These companies should be PAYING search engines to index them. Just for the chance at getting some of those users to visit their crap little local news sites once and maybe comming back someday.

      Personally if i were in charge of google. I'd instantly and completely delist any company that whined like this. They all need google far more than google needs them. They just don't seem to have a big enough clue to know it.
      "oh well without those sites google wont have anything to index!" bullshit! there have always been plenty of sites who are NOT interested in the money and ad revenue. And always have been.

      If all these greedy control freak sites don't want to be listed. FINE. Get rid of them. Most of the world will not fucking notice or care! In fact we might get a little bit better signal to noise ratio on the net if some of the greedy fucks who are on the net only for money..... were gone.

      Delist them. Forget them. And don't let them back in without a large payment.

    30. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you assume news sites would be fucked if Google news shut down? Do you really think people can't remember CNN.com, bbc.com, foxnews.com, aljazeera.com, bostonglobe.com, wallstreetjournal.com, washingtonpost.com, etc?

      It's pretty damned easy to remember the name of your local paper, and the name of a couple popular national (or even international) agencies as well. People don't need Google to find the news - Google would be more fucked than the news sites.

    31. Re:Let them by just_a_monkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This could be a problem for us, the consumers, if the content creators have to ... do less research, and/or provide less depth

      If we are talking about mainstream media, I doubt that is possible. So we are safe.

      --
      How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
    32. Re:Let them by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      They'll see what happens when their visits drop.

      That actually won't happen. None of the sites mentioned are actually blocking Google from indexing their sites. They may have stopped providing nicely formatted headlines to Google News, but they haven't dared blocking Google to those same articles with a robots.txt through their online sites (which essentially contains the same newspaper content, plus some extra blog content which does not normally appear in the official version of their newspapers).

      Essentially, they're hoping to lead a Worldwide revolt, hoping that others will jump into the fray and finish the suicidal charge they've just started, but they themselves are keeping their options opened and their page rank mostly intact, just in case the revolt doesn't work out.

    33. Re:Let them by luncheon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This. The IAPA is just a CIA-funded lobby organization formed by all the Latin American right wing print media owners (that 1300 newspaper thing on the Wikipedia article is misleading, since it represents just a couple of monopolic media groups per country). They are the Fox News of Latin America, operating from the US. I think that their biggest fear apart from the supposed traffic (and revenue) loss is the archival capacity of Google, since with an external site linking to their news content it's harder for them to control the way they show the news (and the possibility of modifying archive media).

    34. Re:Let them by hypergreatthing · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Google should pay the newspapers for the content, and the newspapers should pay Google for indexing and pointing people to the content. And the cost for both should be equal.
      Ohh, that's how it is right now? ok
      If they want to shoot themselves in the foot let them. They'll come crawling back.

    35. Re:Let them by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They should start paying website owners and creators too. If we didn't make websites, they would have nothing to link in their main search either.

      There are basically two types of websites: Free and paywalled.

      If your website is free, you're publishing it for people to read without any expectation of payment (except perhaps from ads run on your site). Why should Google have to pay you for viewing your site when nobody else does?

      If you website is paywalled, then Google can't index it, so it's not going to show up in their search results and you have nothing to complain about.

      And if you're one of those people with a free website but still don't want Google to index it, then just drop a robots.txt file in it.

      It is not like there is some mutual relationship that benefits both otherwise...

      There is a mutual relationship that benefits both. It's just that the "both" aren't the people you think it is. Google's relationship is with the person searching the web. The person gets the benefit of finding stuff on the web more easily, and Google gets the benefit of advertising dollars. Once Google delivers the viewer to your site, what you do with him and how you monetize it is entire up to you. Google has no relationship with the content provider beyond what a regular viewer has (they read the content).

    36. Re:Let them by dsvick · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Aggregate sites do drive viewers to articles, but it may be that they are driving them in a way that is not profitable for the news sites themselves.

      That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, there is no difference between one person staying on the site and viewing 10 pages vs 10 separate people viewing a single page each. I'd even be willing to bet that the news sites get more out of it than google does. When I go to google news I usually hit the page one time, scroll through it and click on whatever articles interest me. Those sites all open in another tab/window, the google news page doesn't change or refresh so I'm only giving them a single hit, while the news sites are all getting one. I don't see the inequity.

      I'm of the opinion that the vast majority of news articles are pretty much the same across news sites anyway and I really don't care (too much) where I'm reading it from, so I don't go out of my way to remember any specific ones. If they are at the top of the pile on google, well then, they're the one that gets clicked. and if they aren't listed, they'll never get my click. If it weren't for google I wouldn't even know they existed, I'd end up at some small number news sites that I could remember and found reasonably unbiased, odds are it would be one of the big name sites, or more than one just to add a little balance. While that is great for the foxnews and cnns of the world, it is not so good for eastNowhereActionnews. But, hey, if they want to go it without google, more power to them, there are probably a couple of dozen people there that know their url and will visit it.

    37. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Humorously Google's news interface sucks. Yahoo!'s older version was good. I don't read Yahoo! news now though since they've been bought and paid for by Microsoft and since removed the Linux section-or at least reduced its presense. That pissed me off. I wasn't using Yahoo! for search already since they moved to Bing. And I got rid of my Yahoo! email 10 years ago. Yahoo! pretty much sucks at everything these days.

    38. Re:Let them by matrim99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The "problem" is shifting useage patterns. The solution is to shift the business model accordingly. Blaming Google on user's constantly changing behavior is easier than adjusting a business model.

      --
      Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
    39. Re:Let them by fredprado · · Score: 1

      Then there is absolutely no motive for the News agencies to boycott it, it being so insignificant and all.

    40. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 0

      This is a blatant misrepresentation of the situation through omission of key facts, aka lie of omission. Google's core operating principle is to define each person and his/her interests and then serve ads based on these interests.

      The amount of information they get from knowing what news each person follows and in what way is enormously valuable to google.

    41. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely no motive? So you can't think of a single one given the stated facts? Ok.

    42. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Really? So, when you want to find all coverage of some event, do you head over to main pages of cnn, bbc, foxnews, aljazeera and your local newspaper and start searching them one by one, or do you type it into google and then open specific articles at all those sites?

      It's less convenient (Go on and try that. "Less convenient" is understatement) for reader, but more profitable for newspaper. Especially considering that with added trouble you'd probably stay conveniently locked to their site and their possible biases.

    43. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is probably no reason why that last sentence in the post you replied to ended with an ellipsis instead of a period...

    44. Re:Let them by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Google mentioned that they forwarded about 4bil users/month to the French sites. Even a small percentage of that volume will be a notable difference.

    45. Re:Let them by Bengie · · Score: 2

      Perhaps no direct money made, but added value to the platform as a whole. Not to mention data-mining user patterns.

    46. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They make money by providing a service that benefits their name**. This is the same reason that businesses do charity work, or provide funds to non-profits, etc. The goodwill to the business name is worth $$; however, in this case, Google could shut down the site without loosing much goodwill, especially if they put up a page saying "Hey, we had to close due to these idiots: #1 #2 #3...." -- I would expect they would be more politically correct, but this is the brief version. Another option, make news.google.* opt in by the newspapers, let them come begging to Google (maybe even charge them for that service and put restrictions on the "quality" of news they can place -- this should get rid of the one paragraph story newspapers too).

      Either way, I can't see Google loosing out here, just the newspapers, but they've been shooting themselves in the foot for 20 years now so I don't expect anything different now.

      ** Note, if you are logged in and use news.google.*, then I would assume they use the links you click as a data point in their tracking and analysing of those users personal preferences as well; again, not direct money but can help with their other enterprises with the new licensing (EULA) thing.

    47. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently your sarcasm detector is broken.

    48. Re:Let them by DigitAl56K · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a blatant misrepresentation of the situation through omission of key facts, aka lie of omission. Google's core operating principle is to define each person and his/her interests and then serve ads based on these interests.

      The amount of information they get from knowing what news each person follows and in what way is enormously valuable to google.

      Let's say for the sake of argument that's true. So what? Newspaper X objects, removes itself, and Google still learns this because the end user _still_ searches for news and still clicks on results. Newspaper X, Y, Z object, there are a dozen more behind them. Let's say all of them collectively object, and Google News can't show news results for Brazil - an unlikely scenario. What will end users do when they can't see the headlines all on one page? They will still use conventional search to look for new, so Google still learns user preference.

      Your whole line of argument is worthless. In fact, it's worse than that, it's backwards, because - and take a seat because this is really going to blow your mind - if Google knows what type of news you're likely to be interested in it can do a better job of getting you to news sites that serve that content, meaning you spend more time on their pages and perhaps monetize better (e.g. through ads or subscriptions). Yes, Google will deliver a higher "quality" user to you.

      Maybe you should stop misrepresenting the situation.

    49. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you have that wrong, I think you should kick the publishers in the balls for not paying Google for providing searchs and links for people to easily lookup data they want. If everyone did that then Google wouldn't have to use Ads and we could all be happy, right? Or should you be forced to sign up with a CC to use Google to search? And to find those "sources of opinion"?

      The simple fact is that Google has found a market and business model that works to make profit and helps many businesses without costing them money; while the publishers (which are a dime-a-dozen) somehow think everyone owes them for the little bit of shite they provide... As have been mentioned MANY times in MANY of these threads, any one of them have the right to ask to be delisted from news.google.* or even completely from Google, if Google is costing them money, why don't they do just that?

      As for Google having nothing to link to? Are you kidding? There are MANY people more than willing to provide material on the net for everyone and who thank companies like Google (bing, yahoo, etc) for making their material accessible to the rest of the world (especially since, for them, Google is doing this for free for them) so what makes those Publishers different? Why is it good for one group and not another?

      I have a suggestion, maybe it is not Google the newspaper publishers are angry with, but Google is an easy target, and instead, the publishers are angry with the Internet in general, before the internet, the only way to keep in contact, keep up with local and foreign events, was the newspaper and their "spin" on that news; now, I can go right to the government statistics page, or the business pronouncement, directly, I don't need the newspaper at all.... no one does, so, in my opinion, it is probably the aggregators (like Google) that have kept these sorry publishers alive at all (as it is still simpler to have an aggregate of summed information versus going to all the businesses and governments directly).

      However, if a competitor ever comes out that can search in real time all the government and business sites, then newspapers are dead... afterall, why bother with a summary with a spin/bias when you can read it directly from the horses mouth?
         

    50. Re:Let them by pmontra · · Score: 1

      I'm sure this is a big opportunity for them. I went browsing to Google News Brazil. I read the news with a little help from Translate and got an idea of what's going in the country. The big sites will discover they're not essential, nevertheless some people will leave Google News for the newspaper sites. We'll see what the pageviews will be an year from now.

    51. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "there is no difference between one person staying on the site and viewing 10 pages vs 10 separate people viewing a single page each."

      This is one of those things that common sense would indicate is true, but turns out to be wrong if looked at from the perspective of the site and not the technical components making it up. You are correct that 10 people viewing 10 articles are roughly equal in terms of http requests, bandwidth usage, page views, and even ad impressions. But it turns out, the page views themselves are not equal in terms of value.

      People who are longer term users are much more likely to convert to click throughs than people who visit an article directly from an aggregate. The person navigating through the site is also more likely to use the site directly in the future, more likely to comment on articles and extend their stays further, more likely to get said replies and articles on their facebook pages, etc... Also, they are much more likely to make direct purchases from the content provider such as CNN's Headline T-Shirts or National Geographic's books.

      Now, that still has to be weighed against the extra and more diverse traffic that aggregators can draw. There are definite benefits to aggregate sites, anyone saying they are a pure drain should be looked at very skeptically. At the same time, there are reasons for content providers to be wary of them. I don't have and am not attempting to provide any answers, just exploring an area of the conversation that seems to be rarely addressed.

    52. Re:Let them by bondsbw · · Score: 3, Funny

      With the robots.txt solution, the way I understand it Google wouldn't even index the full article, and thus text that only appears in the article (not the summary) would not be factored into search results.

      This is basically SEO suicide, but whatever... it's their server, they can cry if they want to.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    53. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Of course they would like you to read and subscribe only to their newspaper, click through only on their advertisements and, possibly, hold only views their owner and sponsors would like you to have. No, thank you, I like my news covered from different angles.

      People complain about "search filter bubble", but this would be ultimate in bubbling, so fuck them and thanks news aggregators for showing other sides of one question.

    54. Re:Let them by DaveGod · · Score: 1

      Hmm, if close to all the Brazilian newspapers (or enough of the ones Brazilians care about) are exiting Google because the "National Association of Newspapers in Brazil" (ANJ) said to, what are people looking for Brazilian newspapers going to do? If the ANJ controls the supply, it effects a monopoly on domestic Brazilian news and so it's a dubious assumption that demand will simply switch to a competitor or substitute paper, because there isn't necessarily one left on Google.

      I'm not sure that international traffic is substantially important to the Portuguese-language papers, especially if their ad revenue per reader is highest to their domestic market.

      Regardless, while there may be a long-term strategy that somehow makes more money by not being on Google, I'm not convinced that is the game. My guess is that they are betting that their monopoly power allows them to dictate terms to Google. The logic being that if Brazilian users are worth anything to Google then Google will be willing to pay something up to that amount in order to keep them. This something being more than the papers get currently thus a long term win.

      Most of the posts in this thread seem to be talking about what is fair and/or assuming a competitive market. Far as I can tell, companies aren't particularly bothered about what is fair and the influence of the ANJ suggests the market is not competitive. I'm not trying to say I like it, but that's what it looks like.

    55. Re:Let them by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      The newspaper don't even want that much without being paid for it ... not being indexed at all isn't really something they want either.

    56. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      It would be worthless if there was an alternative to google. Because then users would switch to this alternative and see all their old sites.

      The concept you're missing here is known as "leveraging a monopoly".

    57. Re:Let them by ChronoReverse · · Score: 1

      I know right? If only there were hypothetical sites with names like Bing or Duckduckgo or Yahoo I could use to search out information so I didn't have to only use Google!

    58. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should Google have to pay you for viewing your site when nobody else does?

      Because I say so.

      If you website is paywalled, then Google can't index it

      Doesn't stop them from indexing the parts that are not paywalled.

      just drop a robots.txt file in it.

      Because I don't want to.

      There is a mutual relationship that benefits both.

      But it doesn't pay me more than I get now.

    59. Re:Let them by fredprado · · Score: 1

      Most likely.

    60. Re:Let them by farble1670 · · Score: 2

      compulsory payments

      the problem (for news organizations) with this is that news is a commodity now. i can get my news from an indie source that offers it for free or i can get it from the an established organization ... i'm going to pick the free one.

    61. Re:Let them by paiute · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, but all of the traffic that Google funnels their way does provide the papers with income. This sounds like the papers are shooting themselves in the foot.

      The newspaper industry has qualified for the highest rank on the shooting-yourself-in-the-foot range.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    62. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Just like those hypothetical operating systems like linux and osx, right? I wonder why microsoft is a convicted monopolist?

    63. Re:Let them by farble1670 · · Score: 1

      Why do you assume news sites would be fucked if Google news shut down? Do you really think people can't remember CNN.com, bbc.com, foxnews.com, aljazeera.com, bostonglobe.com, wallstreetjournal.com, washingtonpost.com, etc?

      they'd be f***** because people don't do that. they go to google for news, and will keep doing it. the difference will be that they won't get results from the agencies that opt-out, and those agencies will get zero revenue from click throughs.

      i could care less if all of those organizations drop out of google news. there are a million smaller organizations waiting to take their place that are hungry for the clicks. news is a commodity. you can get it from cnn.com or some indie organizations. it matters little.

    64. Re:Let them by farble1670 · · Score: 1

      Well, we certainly don't want fewer sources of opinion

      somehow, i don't think the world is in danger of having too few opinions.

    65. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you have a monopoly, it's not illegal to use it—just illegal to use it in illegal ways. Even if you could prove that Google has a monopoly on search—here's a hint: it doesn't, even by the looser standards by which Microsoft was convicted—you'd still have to show that it's using that monopoly in an illegal way in order to prove your point.

    66. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Yes, and threatening to remove your pages from the search engine completely is what is called "leveraging of monopolist position". Consider that if there was no such monopoly, such threats would serve no purpose other then force people using the engine to migrate to competing service that kept the listings. This is exactly what anti-monopoly laws are designed to prevent to allow for market to actually function.

    67. Re:Let them by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 3

      The Brazilian papers are doing the right thing if they feel that Google news (and similar indexers/aggregators) are costing more clicks/view/revenue than they are bringing in. Opt out. I suspect they are wrong, but they are welcome to try it for awhile. If it doesn't work, they can always change their minds and opt back in.

      Unlike the French media, which expects Google to channel views to them for nothing and pay them for the privilege.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    68. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Google were manipulating an unrelated market, like saying "buy a Chromebook or you get delisted", sure, that'd be illegal.

      Here newspapers are saying "pay if you want to index us", and Google is saying "okay, we'll stop indexing you". It's the same deal that everyone else gets.

    69. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't take a monopoly to make that threat credible. By simply having any number of users, delisting those news papers will have some impact. All that matters from absolute numbers is if it is worth their time to look into the issue, beyond that, it would all be about proportional impact. Even if Google had just 10% market share and represented how 5% of people got to a news site, a company would probably not want to lose 5% of their business. And yeah, if Google stops listing someone's favorite site, they might start using another search engine, or they might not care or notice enough to bother.

      It is up to the news site to figure out or decide if they would gain more by being listed on Google or not. Maybe they will gain more page views when people go to their home page and articles when they are not on Google. Maybe people will just stop going to their site at all. Maybe they will switch to another search engine.

      And to me, this is the market functioning... if someone comes up to you and says, "My previously free offers will now cost money," you have a choice to either pay or not use it. What is the alternative, force Google to pay for something they would rather not use at all than pay that price?

    70. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe because people don't give a fuck about 99% of the content offered by the news papers. They want to see a few headlines on content that they're interested in, and Google provides that. The newspapers on the other hand want to lead readers around by the nose and people are tired of that.

      The food newspapers supply is a shit sandwich, and google is just helping people take the shit out of it.

      If the newspapers were actually doing their fucking job and learning how to present content that customers want, and not the content they want, there wouldn't be this problem in the first place.

      So let the fuckers rot, they are replaceable.

    71. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      News selling market is a separate market from search. You're running "browser is part of OS" argument here.

    72. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Consider Google's situation in China. They had ~20% of the market (far from monopoly). They threatened to leave when terms changed and disagreed with new terms. Everyone else agreed. Google made good on their threat and left. Their customers mostly relocated to other competing search engines like Baidu and life moved on.

      That is market at work. It won't work in the places where Google is in a monopolist position however, which is why monopolies are legally restricted from attempting to leverage their monopolies like this, while non-monopolies are allowed. If you want to find out why it works like this, look up what happened in early industrial age when monopolies were legal and what they did to the market and society.

    73. Re:Let them by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Well considering most I have seen simply put their own "spin" on the AP wire stories? Good riddance. If their content is worth anything let them put it behind a paywall and if enough people buy? Then and ONLY then should Google talk to them about paying for access.

      Until then its just another failing business that is trying to get paid for doing shoddy substandard work. I bet if you were to remove the wire stories from all these "newspapers" you wouldn't have 3 pages worth of "content" left and that would just be press releases and obituaries.

      Oh and OT but WTF with the /. logo in the corner? Seriously I thought Bing was irritating with those animated home pages but that thing flashing in the corner is even more irritating, at least Bing picks a pretty wildlife shot with little "did you know?" blurbs, this is like an old neon sign just flashing out the corner of your eye constantly, it sucks.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    74. Re:Let them by prisma · · Score: 1

      Yep. Google doesn't show the entire article, they show enough content to drive viewers to the article. It's up to the individual sites to retain those visitors, not Google.

      Newspapers should be paying Google for the service of indexing and driving customers to them.

      Building on this perspective, perhaps these newspapers have already benefited from the traffic brought by Google News' indexing and now they want fuller control over this traffic.

    75. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Saying if you want me to pay you for linking to you I won't link to you is "leveraging of monopolist position"? That doesn't sound right.

      MS is accused of monopolistic behavior because he was asked to remove IE explorer and he said he couldn't, he says he'll open a standard and really doesn't, copies java badly so you won't use it, etc. etc.

      Google is less Evil than MS.

    76. Re:Let them by Pseudonym+Authority · · Score: 1

      My knowledge just made a quantum leap upon reading that!

    77. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Being "less something" doesn't make you "not something".

      Example: Mussolini was less evil then Hitler.

      (I had to invoke Godwin's law in an actually proper context).

      And then there's the issue of being evil having nothing to do with being a monopoly or leveraging it.

    78. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After all, if it weren't for the news outlets, Google would have nothing to link to (as far as news, anyway)

      If it wasn't for us neighbors (well, at least those of us who eat food) the nearby supermarket would have nobody to sell their groceries to. I guess they are getting my bill some of these days.

    79. Re:Let them by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Google only has a near-monopoly on Search, not news aggregators.

      You can remove your site from News and not Search if you want, because not only Google doesn't "leverage their monopoly" as they provide the tools for you to do jut that: https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1061943

    80. Re:Let them by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Leaving aside the fact that Google is in fact not leveraging their monopoly on Search (since you can leave News without leaving Search), the fact is that MS killing Netscape - their "crime" - was what lead to its rebirth as Mozilla and then Firefox, which is in my opinion a much better browser than Netscape ever was, but more importantly it conquered plenty of market share despite MS keeping IE bundled with Windows.

      Non legally created monopolies are not a big a problem for consumers as people want to believe, particularly in places like the Web where the costs of switching are general quite low.

    81. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worse than having all the same thing, it's because they're all in from the same source. Meanwhile they're all paying to decorate with photos and such, so they really need you to stay engaged. Deep linking in a way where only one article is exposed isn't a great scenario for them, but they're soon going to learn that it's better than zero traffic.

    82. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      This would sound really really nice if not for significant historic precedent to contrary. Unless of course you count only direct and immediate impact on consumers and completely ignore all other forms of impact, which constitute vast majority of the resulting damage. In which case, nice corporate speak usage there.

    83. Re:Let them by Cyberllama · · Score: 1

      They just can't find a business model that still works, and so they want laws made that let them attach themselves to someone else like a leech and profit from their business model.

    84. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Microsoft has a near-monopoly on OS, not web browsers. We do know how that argument ended, in spite of all the revisionist whitewashing after change of administration and US deal.

    85. Re:Let them by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      Hey, I did not try Google News all this time... It looks interesting. It's organized, no lame scripts, and it discovered before me what the people working at the other side of my building just did :)

      If it keeps this way, two big brazilian newspapers just lost a reader.

    86. Re:Let them by theArtificial · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't it be Google who would be crawling? *hides*

      --
      Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
    87. Re:Let them by toriver · · Score: 1

      Are you in the wrong thread? This is not about the situation in France but newspapers in Brazil choosing to opt out.

    88. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      You seem to imply that these two issues are completely separate, which is obviously not the case to the point where OP actually links to the situation in France.

    89. Re:Let them by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1

      > Yes, and threatening to remove your pages from the search
      > engine completely is what is called "leveraging of monopolist position".

      Errr. uhmmm, no. Some politicians in France threatened to pass laws which would require Google to pay for a previously free activity, indexing websites of French newspapers. Google said "fine, we'll stop indexing. We'll use other free sites.". The best analogy is if Slashdot was paywalled after 15 years of being free. If you said that you'd stop using Slashdot, rather than pay, is that illegal on your part?

      --

      I'm not repeating myself
      I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
    90. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because they used their bargaining power in one field (operating systems) in order to stifle competition in another field (web browers). What did you think they were convicted for?

    91. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Slashdot isn't a monopoly and users aren't earning money from third parties by using slashdot.

      Gotta say, that was one of the worst analogies I've seen. It's pretty much the exact opposite of what's happening here.

    92. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Whoosh.

    93. Re:Let them by toriver · · Score: 1

      So what? You have no right to be indexed by Google, if you want to start charging them to do so then Google has the option of not "buying" your "goods". And reflexive of that, if you want to not be indexed by them that is also easy to do. But keep in mind there is a reason there is an entire business sector dedicated to maximize the benefits to your site from search engines...

    94. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      By the same measure, content owners have no right to get money from me every time I buy blank media.

      Except that they do. Because world isn't quite as black and white as you seem to think it is.

    95. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, what? You don't have the option of not buying blank media? Do you get punished if you refuse to buy blank media because of that levy?

    96. Re:Let them by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      You get punished by not being able to store information. Which is a rather harsh punishment in this day and age, most people would not be able to work in their chosen career for example.

    97. Re:Let them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Google reduced to returning "No results found" for every query in France would be a rather harsh punishment for them. And just like in your example it's still what you bring on yourself by your own choice, not a mandated punishment for failure to buy a CD.

    98. Re:Let them by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      no mod points left : insightful
      yea, and let them, see what happens

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
    99. Re:Let them by AbominousSalad · · Score: 1

      There's the possibility that papers are depending on ads from local goods and services which never sell to global readers. If their servers can't handle global spikes during international news trends (spikes which would probably be sourced more in the U.S. than in Brazil) then they're potentially losing money because local customers can't access the slashdotted site and thus can't be targeted for ads regarding local cars, homes, etc.

      But I'm just playing devil's advocate... this is the most batshit retarded decision anyone's made on the Internet since the last time Oracle issued a press release. Adjust the business plan or get out of the economy. And if you think that's unfair, go buy a horse-pulled carriage.

      --
      Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
  2. My god! by grnbrg · · Score: 5, Funny

    How many is a brazilian?!

    1. Re:My god! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And is it bigger or smaller than a Google?

    2. Re:My god! by milbournosphere · · Score: 1

      My understanding is that it's only about a Library of Congress in size.

    3. Re:My god! by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      Think of it as a multiple of Library of Congress stuffed with Kim Kardashian's butt cheeks . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    4. Re:My god! by ByOhTek · · Score: 1

      It's a triangular shaped topiary.

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
    5. Re:My god! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One metric assload.

    6. Re:My god! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A Brazilian is actually a category of a numbers and not a specific value. An integer is a Brazilian if it is the sum of the integers on any given row of Pascal's Triangle.

    7. Re:My god! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      its full of stars.

    8. Re:My god! by bondsbw · · Score: 1

      How many is a brazilian?!

      I don't know. Evidently, that's Victoria's secret.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  3. News Corp already tried this and failed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rupert Murdoch blasted Google in the past for featuring his news sites and had them removed. Yet recently, he reversed his decision: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9566353/Rupert-Murdoch-backs-down-in-war-with-parasite-Google.html

  4. Re:Let them watch television. by hoboroadie · · Score: 1

    I use the favorites button on my browser, so I don't have to remember anything. If I want to be bold, I can open up the home pages of all my news sites at once.
    An outlier like myself means nothing to these corporations, OTOH, and hardly anybody seems willfully informed by the web anyway.

    --
    They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
  5. there's an available solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Robots.txt. You can prohibit google or any reputable search engine from indexing your content.

    The POINT of the HTTP protocol is to serve data, but if you don't wanna, it's your machine that gives the data over. It doesn't have to do that. You have full control over that via several different means, from robots.txt to a paywall. There are blacklists and whitelists - what gets given out is under the control of the serving system. It seems a bit insane to voluntarily reply to a request for data, and then get mad that the other side saw the data. If you don't want them to see it, don't offer it up via a protocol whose entire purpose is to transfer data from a server to a requesting machine.

    The internet could never have grown as it did if in the beginning everyone was going to subvert the intent of the technical aspects of it.

    1. Re:there's an available solution by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ah, but Robots.txt doesn't allow you to have it both ways.

      For, um, totally reasonable reasons that I don't feel obliged to articulate right now, I deserve both the exposure of being listed by Google and payment from Google for listing me!

      Sure, I could tell my server nerd to make the changes necessary to stop my content from being 'stolen' in about 30 seconds; but that would deny me the exposure that is my natural right...

    2. Re:there's an available solution by Hatta · · Score: 0

      Robots.txt. You can prohibit google or any reputable search engine from indexing your content.

      I presume that's an exclusive "or".

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:there's an available solution by lightknight · · Score: 2

      Hmm. They appear to want a dumbed down search engine, where it provides a link and says "what you are looking for might be on this site, but you'll have to use their crappy built-in search and work to find it, instead us of just linking directly to it." Or they want Google to pay them for having identical content ("We put an AP article up like 3,000 other news sites! We deserve some money! Gimme gimme!"). This is what happens when you let journalists on the web -> they have no grasp or understanding of how or why things are the way they are, and want the techs (servants / slaves) to completely rewrite a design that has worked just fine for decades so that they don't have to think of a new business model.

      In a strange way, it reminds me of how the pirates told the musicians, "We aren't your enemies," with some of them believing the pirates and a fair portion of them not. The funny part, loosely related to all this, is that now the musicians are being asked to take an 85% pay cut with compulsory licensing on radio play rights, proving the point.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
  6. Just a billion? by blakecraw · · Score: 1

    According to Marcel Leonardi, the company's public policies director, Google News channels a billion clicks to news sites around the world.

    Let me know when you can channel a brazillion clicks to news sites, then we'll talk.

  7. It is a curious problem by ohnocitizen · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Google is clearly in the right - it would break the internet if you couldn't link to articles on another site. That being said, the newspapers are correct in that they are losing traffic to their homepage - people are less likely than ever to bother checking cnn.com vs going directly to google news. What the newspapers fail to see is:
    1. They gain far more traffic to article pages than they lose from their homepage.
    2. Their homepages are not as inviting as google's - learn from that. Figure out why. Is it just choice, or is there more to it?
    3. If they succeed, then sites that currently link to articles and drive traffic - not just google - would delist them. All that traffic coming from reddit, buzzfeed, blogspot, wordpress, facebook, twitter, etc - GONE.

    The only way to see the newspaper's side is if you imagine someone make a faux cnn homepage - listing only cnn articles and putting up advertising. That would seem fishy, wouldn't it? But to make that side count - to give it the same weight as google's, you'd need to discount that google is a search engine, displays multiple pages, and gives far more than it takes. You'd need to ignore that enforcement only becomes possible if you end up hurting more than just google - and the impact that would have on the web would be devastating.

    1. Re:It is a curious problem by geekoid · · Score: 2

      "people are less likely than ever to bother checking cnn.com vs going directly to google news. "
      false. Google news doesn't give you the whole story only a headline and a sentence or two.

      Have you ever been to google news?
      https://news.google.com/

      "The only way to see the newspaper's side is if you imagine someone make a faux cnn homepage - listing only cnn articles and putting up advertising. That would seem fishy, wouldn't it?"
      yes, but that's not happening here, so it isn't relevant.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:It is a curious problem by ohnocitizen · · Score: 1
      I should clarify, when I say checking cnn.com, I don't mean the article pages. I mean their homepage. "people are less likely than ever to bother checking the cnn.com homepage vs going directly to google news.". I had thought that was clear from the context, but it never hurts to spell things out.

      "The only way to see the newspaper's side is if you imagine someone make a faux cnn homepage - listing only cnn articles and putting up advertising. That would seem fishy, wouldn't it?" yes, but that's not happening here, so it isn't relevant.

      Hahaha, sure it is. I'm pointing out a possible fear the newspapers have, and the one situation in which you could see their side of the story. I then proceed to explain why EVEN THAT scenario ends up being on google's side anyway.

      I think you just missed my arguments.

    3. Re:It is a curious problem by nwf · · Score: 1

      2. Their homepages are not as inviting as google's - learn from that. Figure out why. Is it just choice, or is there more to it?

      This is the big one. I like to read news online, though I'm in the US. Every so-called new site I've looked, except Google News, is basically worthless. ABC News, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, newspapers, etc. are useless to me. I wan to see, at a glance, a decent number of stories covering a rather broad set of topics. Most sites show you like 10 headlines and tons of other crap. I can't even figure out how to get real news on these sites. Interestingly, most of these sites' mobile versions are far more informative, so I usually end up reading them on my iPhone. So for me, if your paper is on Google News and you aren't one of the 3 I read on my phone, I'll never see your articles and I don't even care.

      --
      I don't know, but it works for me.
  8. And this is what'll happen by MikeRT · · Score: 1

    1. New media sites that were born and bred online will fill in most of the gap.

    2. Bloggers who quote the MSM will fill in the rest and be the main venue by which these papers even get back into Google in some capacity.

  9. Let me see if I've got this right... by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 3, Informative

    The newspapers believe that they have a right to force me to pay for telling someone else that their paper carries a story and what page it's on? I... can't think of a single bit of law supporting that position, anywhere. They certainly have the right to keep me from photocopying their story and handing it out to people, but "the right to be the only entity who can tell others the work exists" isn't something I find anywhere in copyright law.

    1. Re:Let me see if I've got this right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you PRO-corporation or against profits? If you're against profits, you will be dealt with, Indian style.

    2. Re:Let me see if I've got this right... by Jeng · · Score: 1

      Those who want less profits are those who are seeking less profits. They don't quite know that what they want is less profits, but that will be the result of the actions they want to take.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    3. Re:Let me see if I've got this right... by houghi · · Score: 1

      They are very well aware that you are able to get your news elsewhere. They just want money if they are the source.

      And even if it isn't a law now, it could be in the future. For better or for worse.

      Some things that were allowed in the past are not now (e.g. Soft drugs/Slavery)
      Some things that were forbidden in the past are allowed now (Find your own examples)

      Just because something is allowed/forbidden now does not mean it should always be that way.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    4. Re:Let me see if I've got this right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Stupid old person.

      It's all Gangham style now!

    5. Re:Let me see if I've got this right... by Endovior · · Score: 1

      It'll never happen. You could make a law that Google (or any search engine) has to pay to index you, but if you do, then Google and co will simply stop indexing anyone who tries. Hence the suggested French media ban.

    6. Re:Let me see if I've got this right... by captain_nifty · · Score: 2

      "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
      -Heinlein

    7. Re:Let me see if I've got this right... by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 1

      Well, if I don't know that they carry the story, how exactly do they expect me to know I should go looking at their outlet for it? If I don't know a store carries an item, the question of my paying them for that item won't even come up because I won't be in that store looking for it. I'll be over in some other store that I know has what I'm looking for.

  10. Maybe this is what we need by kawabago · · Score: 2

    Maybe this will prompt someone to come up with a better way to collect and distribute the news to people without charge. We should not need to pay to find out what is going on in the world around us.

    1. Re:Maybe this is what we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "We should not need to pay to find out what is going on in the world around us." Read it again, wait 5sec and see if you still agree.

    2. Re:Maybe this is what we need by Jeng · · Score: 1

      I agree, information should be freely accessible.

      We may disagree though on how that should be accomplished.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    3. Re:Maybe this is what we need by Chemisor · · Score: 1

      The usual way to do so is called "gossip".

    4. Re:Maybe this is what we need by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Really? Because the REAL journalists, not retarded bloggers, don't need to eat and have a home?

      Paying one way or another for services rendered is standard and entirely acceptable. Stop being such a fucking leech.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    5. Re:Maybe this is what we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kind of reminds me of the WinXP days when people would say Windows was cheaper, and others would respond with Only if your time is worthless.

    6. Re:Maybe this is what we need by bartoku · · Score: 1

      Maybe this will prompt someone to come up with a better way to collect and distribute the news to people without charge.

      It is called Twitter, enjoy...of course it still costs you a device, connectivity charge, and eventually whatever monetizing means Twitter comes up with.

      We should not need to pay to find out what is going on in the world around us.

      You do not need to pay, go out in the world and get it yourself.

      Now if you expect someone to bring it to you on a platter with any level of quality, and reliability, trustworthiness then it will come at a cost.
      That cost may be tax dollars in your socialist society that feeds, clothes, bathes, and medicates you, or from advertising views or pay-walls.
      Of course I do not know of any news service that provides that caliber of news today for pay or free anyway, so Twitter should be sufficient for you.

    7. Re:Maybe this is what we need by mk1004 · · Score: 1

      Really? Because the REAL journalists, not retarded bloggers, don't need to eat and have a home?

      Paying one way or another for services rendered is standard and entirely acceptable. Stop being such a fucking leech.

      Shame I used up my mod points earlier. +1 obvious. Of course, even "real" journalists are more often than not being paid to bias the news one way or the other. The difference between them and bloggers seems to be getting smaller and smaller every day.

      --
      I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
    8. Re:Maybe this is what we need by Myopic · · Score: 1

      My suggestion is not to do that. Instead, charge. Charge me one or two pennies for your article. Give me the first paragraph and then *click* for a penny or two, or even less than a penny if you have high volume.

      The *click* is the hard part, technologically.

    9. Re:Maybe this is what we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Although I support Google's position here, I have to ask just who you think should pay to collect the news. An army of volunteers paying for foreign correspondents out of their own pockets just because they really feel good telling you what's going on?

    10. Re:Maybe this is what we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Collecting and distributing news takes time and effort and therefore costs money. Someone is going to pay for it. Either the end users pay for it or taxpayers pay for it.

      There is no such thing as a free lunch.

    11. Re:Maybe this is what we need by icebraining · · Score: 1

      Maybe parent doesn't want or need "REAL" journalists, and is quite content with having cheaper ones provide the news?

      Paying one way or another for services rendered is standard and entirely acceptable.

      So do Slashdot editors, programmers, sysadmins, etc, but I don't see a subscriber mark on your account.

      If you claim you watch ads instead, GP never ruled that out either, so you're killing a strawman.

  11. There are biased news everywhere, anyhow by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 2

    look at this article:
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57535804/confrontation-may-loom-in-waters-off-israel/

    and check how many American news sites report on it via Google:
    http://www.google.com/news?q=Ship+to+Gaza+Estelle&lr=English&hl=en

    Very very few. So, maybe the Brazilian news sites have something to hide? Filtered news is this news?

    1. Re:There are biased news everywhere, anyhow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, I go to Google news on your link and see a whole page-full of your stories. I think that it just takes a couple of hours for Google to find all the stories...

    2. Re:There are biased news everywhere, anyhow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it has increased indeed. /G3ckoG33k

  12. That's not the reason to let them. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's not the reason to let them. If they block Google, then that is their right. At least they're not demanding Google pay to link.

    Block Google, enter a robots.txt, make ignoring robots.txt a copyright offence, whatever.

    They're entitled to do so.

    They're not entitled to rework the entire internet because they don't like how it operates.

  13. It's not a bad system IMO by NinjaTekNeeks · · Score: 2

    Google provides FREE news search feature to consumers, funds and profits from it via ads on search page.
    Newspaper gets worldwide exposure which drives (increases) existing ad revenue/views

    News companies should be elated about this service, they are basically getting exposure and increased revenue from google's search product without having to pay Google a dime.

    1. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Scowler · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I disagree.

      It seems odd to me that the bulk of the money in the NEWS business would go to news aggregators, as opposed to those who are reporting the news in the first place. I think we would get higher quality news, including more exposes, etc. if we could figure out how to fix this oddity.

    2. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by glop · · Score: 1

      What makes you think the bulk of the money is going to aggregators?
      The only money the aggregator makes is the one from people who click on the ads on the aggregation page.
      If the aggregated stories are interesting you expect people will click on the stories instead of the ads (after all it's not an Ad aggregation page...).
      And then they are on the newspaper's website and if they click on ads there the aggregator doesn't make a dime.
      So basically the only way the aggregator makes the bulk of the money is if the articles are shallow and uninteresting.

      Note that there was a very enlightening discussion on what makes people click through on TheRegister's podcast years ago.
      And basically the guy explained you get more clicks if you tell a bogus Apple or Google story than with an interesting piece with actual content.

      So I would say that we get the news we deserve by clicking or not clicking and aggregators are not really the issue.

    3. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Jeng · · Score: 1

      I go to googles news page, I see a story headline, I click the little arrow to find who all is reporting the story, and I then follow links directly to the news sites story.

      How is this not saving the news companies money?

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    4. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Stop funding it thru advertising.

    5. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by BitZtream · · Score: 0

      The news aggregators in general have provided us with higher quality news where the newspapers themselves have failed. Aggregators take into account who is clicking what to weight what they have. The end result is that in general the move viewed articles get top billing.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    6. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      By giving news company far less hits, and as a result, far less ad impressions than in situation where user would come from it's own main page rather then google's.

    7. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Jeng · · Score: 1

      Ok, so since they serve up fewer web pages they are loosing money?

      I'm not talking potential money involving things I will not do such as viewing the news organizations main page. That is like when Congress including the cost saving of changing daylight savings on the economy to counter the cost of something stupid they wanted.

      And besides, I use an ad-blocker so I wouldn't be seeing the ads anyway.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    8. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Jeng · · Score: 1

      bah, losing not loosing.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    9. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      The answer to your question is "Yes".

    10. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by lightknight · · Score: 1

      They appear to want you to spend several minutes in frustration using a crappy WordPress search engine to find the one article you came for, and hopefully accidentally open a dozen others (more clicks).

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    11. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How else are they going to fund them? Grants? Donations? Shake-downs?

      Newspapers have been losing subscription revenue steadily for over 15 years now.

    12. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Note that there was a very enlightening discussion on what makes people click through on TheRegister's podcast years ago. And basically the guy explained you get more clicks if you tell a bogus Apple or Google story than with an interesting piece with actual content.

      I've yet to read an article on The Register that I didn't feel was taking significant liberties with the truth. It's the tabloid newspaper of the tech world. I've glad to see Slashdot has finally stopped linking it daily.

    13. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the grandparent's point is that, on balance, news companies actually get more hits—but on individual articles (which of course have ads as well), not the news site's front page. Certainly there's a citation needed there, but if true, the Brazilian companies (and Rupert Murdoch earlier) are acting against their own self-interest.

    14. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      If that was his point, he's simply wrong on two levels.

      First on absolute level - google's presence has decreased page hits for most media outlets.

      Second on revenue level - most profitable customers are the ones who stay on your page and surf through a lot of your content using your page's own navigation. Google does all the navigation and only gives your page one view and then user goes back to google.

    15. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Scowler · · Score: 1

      Popularity != Quality

    16. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First on absolute level - google's presence has decreased page hits for most media outlets.

      [citation needed]. I suspect that most it could do is redirect some of page hits from big media to less known sites. So, "first on absolute level - google's presence has raised page hits for most media outlets (because there are more media outlets than a dozen of big corps)"

      Second on revenue level - most profitable customers are the ones who stay on your page and surf through a lot of your content using your page's own navigation. Google does all the navigation and only gives your page one view and then user goes back to google.

      How about the site itself providing an incentive to stay? Like, you know, sidebar with links to other interesting stories or a comments section. It's not Google's (or /.'s - hey, it works the same, linked articles get slashdotted, but then everyone comes back to Slashdot. Make Dice pay!) fault that you failed to hold your visitor's interest for more than a minute.

    17. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      1. Numbers are cited by sites in question. You are accusing a lot of people of lying on the numbers (notably even google isn't really dimissing their numbers unlike you).
      2. You're essentially asking that these sites become google. It's rather impossible to accomplish this feat when you, unlike google, are burdened with task of actually generating content.

    18. Re:It's not a bad system IMO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? I thought slashdot was the tabloid newspaper of the tech world. Or maybe they both are?

  14. hey google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    we hackers will post on our website all the news ....you can make ads and send traffic and maybe if you let me have some ad money fo rmy traffic ill put one add somewhere for advertisers...the way it should be.

    to these other corproate shills get ready your relevance just evaporated.

  15. Google Earnings by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 0

    I wonder if all this news silliness is starting to affect their bottom line.

    Personally, I gave up on Google News, given that any story even remotely connected to US politics always has an incendiary, right-leaning headline from Fox 'news', Newsmax, Drudge, or other GOP propagandists. I doubt Google is conspiring, but if they can't be bothered to guard their algorithms from obvious manipulation, eff em.

    1. Re:Google Earnings by jkflying · · Score: 1

      Maybe Google figured out that for you it makes you more likely to click through if they show you right wing headlines?

      --
      Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
    2. Re:Google Earnings by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      Consider why google runs news.google.com. It can't be ad revenue from the site, because that particular google site has no ads.

      Answer lies in core function of google's official mission - to index everything as recognisably as possible and sell this information in various forms to its clientele. In this case, they get detailed information on what news its main product follows and how. This will often let them build a very good personal profile on many subjects that its customers would be interested in, such as political orientation and strength of conviction in such orientation, sexual orientation, religion and so on.

      Seriously, stop and think for a moment what kind of profile can be built on a person based just on their news.google.com preferences and clickthrough. Now consider that google has unified its recognition algorithms to use all its platforms. You could make a very solid argument that google is basically leveraging its monopoly to collect this data for free, repackage it, and resell it without paying a dime to original producers.

      Of course, you could also make a very solid argument against this as well. As I said in the other article about french press, both sides have very compelling arguments to back their cause. To pretend that only the side you support has them and other doesn't is quite ignorant at this point.

  16. what's really being asked for by kipsate · · Score: 1

    Since any site has the ability to prevent to be indexed by means of a simple robots.txt, the request to ban Google from indexing news sites changes its meaning. The news sites are not asking: "please stop indexing our site" but: "please stop indexing the sites of our competitors" by outlawing it.

    --
    My karma ran over your dogma
  17. They'd lose no revenue. No ads on google news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or have you never been on there?

    NO ADVERTS.

    Google *Search* has adverts. Google *News* doesn't.

    So shutting down Google News will not lose ANY clicking on placed ads.

    Idiot.

    1. Re:They'd lose no revenue. No ads on google news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google *Search* has adverts. Google *News* doesn't.

      Dude's right. Unless you count the Editor's Picks as advertising, which it could be.

    2. Re:They'd lose no revenue. No ads on google news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Google news has its own search that is separate from the regular Google search and stays in their news section. This will give you ads while still being in Google News.

      As an example, do a regular Google search for laptops, and then do a Google News search for laptops. Both will have ads, but results will be different because one of them is still part of Google's News site. The news search will also still have a regular news sidebar on the left instead of the regular search sidebar.

  18. robots.txt by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

    If you don't like it then stop whining and pull yourselves from google. You have the power don't pretend you don't or don't know that you do.

    What is the point of whining when a few lines added to a single text file will solve *all* of your problems?

    1. Re:robots.txt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Business owners don't know how to configure web servers, and don't know these things exist. Plebs that know this stuff aren't in communication with executives.

    2. Re:robots.txt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simple. Whining might get some politicians to give them handouts at the expense of a large, profitable business, thus allowing their broken business model to keep limping along for a while. Adding a few lines to a single text file won't.

  19. wax my newspaper ?!? by bigpickle · · Score: 1

    I don't think so

  20. So.... by gosand · · Score: 2

    I suppose Slashdot should pay someone for bringing us this story then?

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  21. Opt-in by goldieswx · · Score: 1

    Should google news become opt-in, all the (crappy) sources not willing to evolve from their old dying business will just disappear from there. I am sure there will be plenty of other (probably more) interesting stuff willing to take a share of the visibility.

  22. Re:Let them watch television. by strength_of_10_men · · Score: 1

    And how did you initially find all these favorite news sites?

    My bet would be something like what happened with me. I click on stories from a few news sites through news.google.com and find myself returning to these sites enough that I eventually just bookmark them.

  23. Re:Brazil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Brazillians are a bunch of stinky mayates anyway.

    "Mayate is a small town and rural commune in El Kelâat Es-Sraghna Province of the Marrakesh-Tensift-El Haouz region of Morocco."

    What does this have to do with the price of eggs?!

  24. Tortious Interference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    According to Marcel Leonardi, the company's public policies director, Google News channels a billion clicks to news sites around the world.

    Yes, Google provides real alternatives when the only other option is, "we'll channel a billion clicks to everyone else's site."

  25. They didn't build that! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google: Their newspaper -- they didn't build that!

  26. Traditional jounalism still out of touch by jd.schmidt · · Score: 1

    The entire news business is having trouble because their previous position as the gatekeepers to news is and will now always be lost to them. More or less every rule and instinct they have learned during their careers is now out of sync with the reality of how the Internet works. They aren't bad, they just don't understand the way forward. That is why they wrongly attack the search engines, they understand their gatekeeper position is lost, but they don't really know how to cope yet. To an extent search engines really are the successors to a newspaper. A newspaper was an attempt to put information "valuable" to the public in a form that could be distributed. Because of time and paper limitations it was necessary for actual people to make decisions about the best way to distribute this information.

    But today, any entity or person, business or private, can now easily communicate directly to the public in a way they choose. We don't really need reporters to tell us "today the President’s spokesman said..." when we can read it ourselves online on www.whitehouse.gov. The public is now in control of what information they want to learn more about AND everyone now has an option of providing their own story in their own words (biased or not!). This did not exist before in any practical or sensible way, other than in "small towns" where everyone knew everyone's business anyway.

    There is, and will probably always be, a need for ethically trained people to attempt to disentangle truth from fiction. For example the moderator at the second presidential debate and fact checking sites are the most simple examples. I am afraid I don’t have the answers, but I know why we can’t go back.

    1. Re:Traditional jounalism still out of touch by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Traditionally media has been a "fourth pillar" of our division of power, keeping check on corruption and giving people information to use for wielding power in democratic process.

      And now comes the billion dollar question. Old system relied on "gatekeeping of the news" to finance this massive task. How do you plan to finance it if this model is defunct, or is your opinion that our governance and awareness of the public good enough completely without non-governmental/interest group funded press?

      Media today has obvious problems with collusion and concentration of power in the hands of the few, just like government systems do. This is about entropy in action. But it's still far better then any other alternatives that have been tried so far. Hence, we have severe pains in the industry trying to reinvent its revenue model without sacrificing it's ability to produce content.

    2. Re:Traditional jounalism still out of touch by lightknight · · Score: 1

      Sounds about right. I mean, it's 2012, and only now is Newsweek transitioning to a web only format.

      To say that the journalists are a little behind, technologically speaking, is to say that we don't use oil lamps as our primary source of light any-more.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    3. Re:Traditional jounalism still out of touch by jd.schmidt · · Score: 1

      It is a cop out to say defining the problem is the first step in addressing it? The issue is more about news organizations understanding where they actually have a value added contribution, and also understanding that their relationship to the public and the news makers has drastically changed. For example, maybe you don’t need to send very many journalists to another country to report on an uprising when rebels can tweet and send videos themselves, or ex-pats can, and the government in power too! You might say, why should we trust all these tweets from another country? I reply we can’t, but reporters are sometimes bias or wrong, just now we have thousands to check each other against.

      A second question is, what specific social services do you want news services to provide? While I see a concentration of tradition big box media in few hands, with overall contraction, I also see people getting their message out through more sources and in a more direct way than ever. Are we sure we are focusing on the right problem. How specific can we get about services we want the media to provide that we are losing?

      Look at this another way, in the past if the media did perform a hatch job on someone, there were good odds they would be unable to get their message out. Now they can give their own message out in their own words. The very attention given to someone to criticize them will drive people to hear their side of the story. I don’t think YouTube as a forum for communication is a fad in any way. It is the high tech equivalent of speaking in the public square where everyone in the village can hear you.

      And maybe the market is changing on its own. I understand public media and talk radio/blogs are doing better than ever. People are already naturally gravitating to in depth (biased or not) interpretation over simple facts.

      Media today has a real challenge, a real challenge of change.

    4. Re:Traditional jounalism still out of touch by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Essentially mass media is likely feeling extreme morphing pains from being pressured from multiple directions at once, which is why they address all these issues separately. Crowdsourcing has made many media outlets into "fact checking" (and unfortunately in some cases fact-rewording) rather then "fact producing" sources. But this isn't the change that is being talked about when google is involved. Google's change is the one where they reduce their advertisement flow by collapsing customer retention on their pages. It's a completely separate issue to the point where the issue you're talking about would have occurred even if google didn't exist.

  27. Newspaper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    R.I.P.

  28. So the Brazilian media show that robots.txt works. by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

    And any paper that doesn't want to be indexed can tell Google "Pay us money or we'll block your spider." So why do the papers need laws requiring Google to pay them when they already have the means at hand to require payment themselves?

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  29. The problems by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

    Problem 1) There are too many newspapers competing with the same story for the same eyeballs. You wind up with 50 stories being written about the same event. Google shows the best headline and blurb and then 5 links below it. Many of the clicks go to blogs and not newspapers.
    Problem 2) An ad shown in search results is worth more than an ad shown on a newspaper's home page. If I search for cars in google news then I may be interested in buying a car. If I click through to a newpaper article about cars then I am probably not in the market for a car. I am likely looking for news. So Google gets more money out of its ads than the newspapers do.

  30. Google threatens to drop links to French media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AFP - Google has threatened to exclude French media sites from its search results if France implements a proposed law forcing search engines to pay for content, according to a letter obtained by AFP.

    The letter sent by Google to several ministerial offices this month said it "cannot accept" such a move and the company "as a consequence would be required to no longer reference French sites."

    It said such a law, which would require Google to make payments to media sites for displaying links to their content, would "threaten (Google's) very existence".

    It also noted that Google "redirects four billion 'clicks' per month towards the Internet pages" of French media.

    Leading French newspaper publishers last month called on the government to adopt a law to force Internet search engines such as Google to pay for content.

    They said a law should impose a settlement in the long-running dispute with Google, which receives high volumes of advertising revenue from user searches for news contained on media websites.

    Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti told a parliamentary commission this week that she was in favour of the idea, calling it "a tool that it seems important to me to develop".

    Google France said earlier that it believed such a law "would be harmful to the Internet, Internet users and news websites that benefit from substantial traffic" sent to them by Google's search engine.

    Newspapers around the world have seen their bottom lines come under pressure as their print advertising revenues slide and online readers resist paying for access when so much content is free on the Internet.

    French lawmakers last year rejected plans for a tax on online advertising revenues, fearing the project would hurt small local companies more than global Internet giants like Google, Facebook or Twitter.

    Google France representatives are to meet Friday with officials from the finance ministry to discuss the project and this week's statement from European data protection agencies saying Google's new privacy policy does not comply with EU laws.

    Google rolled out the new privacy policy in March, allowing it to track users across various services to develop targeted advertising, despite sharp criticism from US and European consumer advocacy groups.

    The EU agencies told Google it had a few months to fix the policy or face legal action.

    http://www.france24.com/en/20121018-google-threatens-drop-links-french-media

  31. Re:Let them watch television. by Dishevel · · Score: 2

    Here is what is really going to happen.
    The people the News agencies are worried about are already coming through Google news.
    They will continue to look at Google News and not even notice that the results of the stuff they are looking for do not have Brazilian newspapers in them.
    They will just see links to places that have the content they are looking for and they will go there.

    Most of the internet cows will not even notice that Brazilian News organizations are no longer relevant to the larger conversations going on without them.

    --
    Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  32. Vive le government intervention! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    "Brazilian Newspapers Leave Google En Masse"

    "What Brazilian Newspapers?"

    "Exactly."

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  33. Can google just pay AP by future+assassin · · Score: 1

    and post the articles on Google news. Except for local news most newspapers recycle the same fucking articles. You got 100's of site around the globe posting the same thing. Google should just pay for it, post it and put up ads and let the papers rot away.

    What's really amazing is how the papers have had time since what 1999/2000 to figure out new business plans to include the internet and none of these people could figure out what to do?

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  34. Dont let the web traffic hit you on the way out... by who_stole_my_kidneys · · Score: 1

    or the lack there of you will see after the exodus.

  35. They want money, that's what they want by jjohn_h · · Score: 1

    >>>
    That's basically what Google does already: just puts headlines and 1-2 sentences from the start, with a link to TFA. The newspapers don't even want that much.
    >>>

    Not entirely correct. They do not mind Google doing all the indexing chore and responding to users in a fraction of a second. But they have noticed that Google earns billions from this service and so they neither mind squeezing some of the juice off. Generously.

    What they really dislike is telling you the truth, they have a strong preference for intellectual property verbiage. They are being robbed, you know.

    1. Re:They want money, that's what they want by vajrabum · · Score: 1

      I'm curious, how does Google make money from this service? I don't see any advertising on front or any other page when I use Google News.

    2. Re:They want money, that's what they want by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure about Google News, but most Google search results will list some returns in a shaded area at the top of the lists. They are results paid to be placed in the results or advertised with the results of a search for certain Keywords.

      They are generally non-intrusive and in my experience, generally what I was looking for anyways. If they aren't, you just scroll down a bit to the third or fourth listing on the results and you are in the unshaded area with pure results.

    3. Re:They want money, that's what they want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't. Google News is a loss.
      But is good for the image of Google.
      So, basically, those publishers are complaining because Google gives them tons of contacts FOR FREE...
      I simply call them idoid (too idiot to spell it correctly...)

    4. Re:They want money, that's what they want by nobaloney · · Score: 1

      They don't. Google News is a loss. But is good for the image of Google. So, basically, those publishers are complaining because Google gives them tons of contacts FOR FREE... I simply call them idoid (too idiot to spell it correctly...)

      The newspapers have never gotten the Internet right. Back in pre-internet days, when dinosours and I both roamed the earth, the newspapers complained that the price of the paper, didn't cover the costs of newsgathering, production and delivery and that's why they had to have so much advertising.

      So the Internet gave them free delivery, and instead of cutting the costs and making money offering free Internet content paid for by advertising, what did they do? They were the first content providers to build paywalls. Making sure that we'd all find alternate sources when searching for articles, and that they couldn't get enough eyeballs to please their advertisers.

      Then they started going bankrupt.

      Now the Los Angeles Times is on the block and according to news stories surfacing yesterday, may end up being bought by Rupert Murdoch. I guess what Los Angeles needs is no legitimate news sources and another flashy tabloid.

      Disclaimer: I don't live in Los Angeles and I don't read any print newspaper.

    5. Re:They want money, that's what they want by vajrabum · · Score: 1

      I don't disbelieve but I went and looked for the usual ads from their regular and didn't find them. I may have overlooked them.

  36. yes, google leads to paying customers by kbdd · · Score: 1
    If it were not for Google News, I would not be a subscriber to Time. After freeloading for a while, I decided to do the right thing (and get the paper copy, which is nice to have) and get a paid subscription. The main idea being that I want to support this paper, and the best way for me to do it is to get a subscription.

    So there you go.

  37. Beware the law of unintended consequences by aurizon · · Score: 1

    These guys are shooting their own feet off
    First the left and then the right, some do it the other way around.

    Google should remove them ASAP and charge them a fee to re-index them...

  38. Re:Let them watch television. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And how did you initially find all these favorite news sites?

    Pull up a chair, son, and I'll tell you about how we found news sites in the days before Google.

    It was the mid-1990s and Usenet was in full flow. And it wasn't binaries in those days...

  39. Parallel To Search by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really, the new aggregator is driving MORE traffic to sites. If we didn't have something to look at to understand what's happening in the world, we wouldn't be searching for it either, would we?

    You could argue that without an aggregator, people would get back in the habit of reading a single news site on a regular basis rather than just going to the aggregator. This is really what the problem is about. A online newspaper uses it's front page to draw people in. Then they have all the other articles people get drawn into reading. With the aggregator, people only go read the important articles. They skip all the silly local opinion pieces, etc.

    The real issue is that the news papers are still fighting to retain a 200 year old business model. They will lose. Take a look at the RIAA if you'd like proof.

  40. What. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just "What".

    I can't even respond to you, because you've built a nice strawman and went on beating on it. Hint: researching a topic in-depth doesn't mean I don't read all the news. Didn't it occur to you that events I look up in Google are those I've heard about somewhere else - like, you know, some news site? Basically, all your post is swinging your fists at thin air.

    I especially like how NEWS AGGREGATOR, that is a tool to conveniently present me with multitude of opinions in your post becomes "Google spoon feeding me my points of view". Dude, if I'd filter Fox News from Google, doesn't it mean that without Google all I'd have to do is just fucking don't visit them? I search at Google exactly because I want to see more than one point of view and I don't even know which sites cover this topic. With Google, there's a chance I'll see a link to a site with opposing views - if I only visited sites I knew looking for coverage, how the fuck would I find that one? That's exactly the bias lock in I'm talking about - going around and around on the sites you've known for long and not knowing about wide world outside of your chosen few.

    But, hey, let's not get logic in the way of good hate rant, eh? By the way, if you'd like it this way more, you can replace "Google" with "Bing" (or "a news aggregator") in all this discussion. It works pretty much the same.

  41. Shifting usage patterns AND by justthinkit · · Score: 1

    Fifty times too many news sites.

    --
    I come here for the love
  42. Just stop telling about your special andriod app by gelfling · · Score: 1

    Seriously. I am sick of that shit every time to randomly go to a news website, forum or aggregator. I do not give a fuck about your android app.

  43. If only the Mainstream Media would do the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just imagine how much better informed the google-using public could be if CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX all opted out of Google News.

  44. Let Free Enterprise (and Darwin) Reign! by confuscan · · Score: 1

    There seems to be endless gnashing of teeth over this issue. How about we just let the market, e.g., you and I along with everyone else decide? Let papers opt out and Google just stops placing their articles on their news page. If readership and revenues drop, the papers always have the option to come back. If not, then they don't. I've always struggle with the papers' position. Google introduces their articles to a lot of people. Google gets something in return. If publishers don't like that arrangement, then there are solutions. I'm a missing something?

  45. Those crazy newspapers! by dadioflex · · Score: 1

    Man oh man, those wacky newspapers are at it again, doing their newspaper thing. Wow, somebody should newspaper them!

    Ok... what's a newspaper exactly?

  46. And leveraging a monopoly means use that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And leveraging a monopoly means use that monopoly to GAIN one elsewhere or to move the market. BOTH of which MS did with Windows.

    1) Force companies not to install any other OS
    2) Force other companies not to install any other browser

    #1 is changing the market (OS) and #2 is using the OS monopoly to create a new one (where, to create one, you have to start without one).

    1. Re:And leveraging a monopoly means use that by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      Agree on all points. Google gains large amounts of personal data on its users from news.google.com. That is its core business. It obviously doesn't want to lose it, but it also doesn't want to pay for it either.

      In the end, this will be an interesting precedent regardless of outcome. Both parties will have very good arguments to bring to the table.

  47. Whatever happened to the concept of micro-payments by WhyNotAskMe · · Score: 1

    Years and years ago, it was considered that one day we would have a convenient and efficient way to make micro-payments on line. Didn't William Gibson's novels foresee such a world? Anyhow, suppose news articles had a real "Like" button, not the Facebook Like. If you liked the story, you could click this button and give it a voluntary micro-payement of from a fraction of a cent to a few cents or as high as you wish. From time to time I have seen some excellent articles by some of the best professional journalists in the world that had a profound impact on my consciousness. In these cases, if there was a simple way as desribed above to show my appreciation I would certainly donate.

  48. Who cares... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who cares about Brazilian news other than Brazillians anyway? Let them and France join the dodo bird in preferring closed platforms. I for one welcome the penguins, we all know what happened to the dodo.

  49. People don't read newspapers any more. by AftanGustur · · Score: 1

    People don't read newspapers, people read "news". And Google is the Gateway to "news".

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
  50. What would be funny... by alexmipego · · Score: 1

    Google drives so many clicks that newspapers should be paying Google, not the other way around. However, since they are taking this road, if I were Google I would stop indexing them and then start charging for those that leave. If you want back in, pay per click so you'll learn your lesson.

  51. Google vs. Old Media by cdmsr · · Score: 1

    Another example of Old Media shooting itself in the foot. Picture dinosaurs looking at the bright light in the sky.