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Google News To Shut Down In Spain On December 16th
An anonymous reader writes The news aggregation services offered by Google is set to be no longer available for Spain, starting December 16th, 2014. The decision of Google comes as response to new Spanish legislation that gives publishers the right to claim compensation for republishing any part of their content. This follows news of services of startup Uber being forbidden in countries like Spain as well as Germany and some city councils worldwide like Delhi, or other services like AirBnb being put under pressure to cope with local laws in other jurisdictions.
...is to defy the state.
there is no other crime.
or go out of business as soon as they notice that more and more people are no longer finding their news site.
http://Anveto.com - Web Design, SEO, Marketing, Analytics & Security
Pretty much the only thing I can see that connects these three are that a US company operating abroad sometimes doesn't find a service that's legal in the US to be legal or practical in $RANDOM_COUNTY_THAT_ISNT_MERICA
As for the story, it's a shame, but that's how the Spanish media wants to operate, the Spanish government agrees with them, and so be it. It's not a big issue, or at least, if it ends up causing hardship, the political process will be followed again and changes will be made again.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
google definitely needs to share, you can't just make money out other people efforts while paying nothing back, it is kind of selfish, good move on part of the spanish govt, google needs to realize that its not just google that can take on Publicis, Omnicom, WPP by swallowing their market share, there is no such thing as monopoly , you have to share your wealth, there is no other way!!!
I am from Spain. The most interesting thing about this is that this stupid law was rushed throught the parlamentary process by surprise, with an ammendment added at the last minute. On the same period, three of the most important reporters that were critical to the government in the big spanish media were fired.
There is especulation that the two things are linked and this was a deal between the Spanish government and the owners of the big media conglomerates in Spain. The media got this law against Google in exchange for supporting the ailing government party which is 50% down in the polls as compared to the last general election, and panicking.
So the big media owners got what they wanted in exchange of censoring news critical to the government. What they do not realize is that this is going to hit their bottom lines because Google is not going to fold down. The are going to lose lots of money and media, and other newspapers from outside Spain are going to increase their share. At the end they will run to the government asking them to remove this law. Or they may even do it before the law is in place, when they see that Google is going to shut them down. The will deserve the humilliation. And this will tarnish their credibility because of the deal they did with the government. They are fools.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Spain and certain other countries are wallowing relics of another age, unable to adapt to the new reality. The loss is theirs. How do they expect to keep their populations from discovering the power of VPNs, Tor, and the other facilities which can effortlessly sidestep their moronic restrictions?
The average newspaper "subscription fee" barely covers the cost of paper and distribution. Newspapers make their real money selling ads. Now those same local newspapers to me want me to buy a subscription to their online versions that cost nothing in paper and almost nothing to distribute? Their online money comes from me clicking through relevant advertisements I find while reading. Make me pay for the _privilege_ to read your news and I'll go elsewhere. Getting listed in an aggregator like news.google.com drives people to news sites so they can sell ads. Wonder how long it'll take before the news sites in Spain see their traffic dwindle to the point they're loosing appreciable revenue.
I used to have a good sig...
...and a little bit retarded.
If only this were about making a stand against Google, but it's not. As with what happend last year in France, It's mostly about moribund institutions looking for a handout. What's also astonishing is the bit about republishing "any part of their content." Yes, I think this will end well.
This is just another example of the special relationship that exists in Spain between corporate interests and the government; almost always against the best interests of the consumer. So you get things like a maximum of 5% discount on books, no Uber, an arbitrary tax on recordable media and recording devices that goes to a slush fund fronting as a recording artists association. All with the blessing and sanction of the government. !Arriba Espana!
Google has put you on notice. Make extraordinary demands that will threaten their business model and they are willing to shut those services down. You'd better find a VPN that will let you access Google from outside the EU.
where individual newspaper publisher can wave their fee and beg Google to reindex their paper, the Spanish version of the law is universal. The only way for the newspaper to get their content re-indexed is for the law to either be tossed out or they repeal it. Oh the pain will last longer here.
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Newspaper advertising traditionally gained its value from the newspaper's demographic. You know the readership, so you know who you're advertising to. Certain newspapers will carry adverts for cheap lager, others expensive champagne. But this notion of a "readership" has been destroyed by Google News -- people now don't chose "their" newspaper, and the advertising becomes untargeted. Newspaper websites are now looking at the same sort of advertising revenues as people's personal blogs. Everything is outsourced to the Google algorithm, and the newspaper itself adds no value to the advertiser.
It is possible that ending the Google News aggregation will mean that sites regain a "readership" and therefore can return to negotiating their own advertising, and that this will result in them returning to profit.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Google has instructions for webmasters on how to exclude their websites from google news if they find the presence of their website on google news objectionable. But that is not what they really want. They want google to bring them their incoming traffic and they also want google to pay them for the privilege of bringing them their traffic. It would be like the movie industry expecting the TV news programmes to pay them for the privilege of plugging their movies on the fluff segments about the latest hollywood blockbuster.
Won't google just change the default news site (on chrome, chromebooks and android devices) to news.google.com and have a link there for espanol...
At the end they [the newspapers] will run to the government asking them to remove this law.
And the critical reporters will still be fired.
Some big errors in the summary:
The decision of Google comes as response to new Spanish legislation that gives publishers the right to claim compensation for republishing any part of their content.
No, if this was the case, it'd just be a rehash of the German situation. No, the problem here is that it gives publishers the obligation to claim compensation. This law is specifically designed to prevent the German situation. So other newspapers can't decide they'd rather have Google's traffic anyway, and thereby undermine this boycott of Google News.
It also fixes another problem that big Spanish newspapers had: on Google News, you could just as easily find small, independent news sites that were critical of the current (conservative) government, as the sites of the major newspapers (which are mostly supportive of the government). Outside Google News, the small press is a lot harder to find. This law removes competition for the big guys as well as criticism about the government. Win-win for big corps and the government. Lose for the people and the small independent press.
Also:
This follows news of services of startup Uber being forbidden in countries like Spain as well as Germany and some city councils worldwide like Delhi, or other services like AirBnb being put under pressure to cope with local laws in other jurisdictions.
This issue has nothing to do with Uber and Airbnb not complying with local laws. There is nothing wrong with foreign companies having to obey local laws in they want to operate there. This, however, is a new law that will hurt the small Spanish press (Google won't be hurt that much, since they don't make money on Google News anyway).
By the way complaints against Uber and Airbnb (which should have been irrelevant to this story but now aren't because of the stupid summary) are not that unreasonable; they're side-stepping consumer-protection regulations that exist for good reasons. In some places they're also side-stepping monopolies or cartels, which is great of course, but some of the laws they're running afoul of are actually good laws.
As a final word, Uber are by now well known to be a bunch of thugs who need to go out of business as soon as possible.
basically only repeat and repeat the same stories from one or two press agencies. Only the shapes of sentences (and not everytime) change.
The thing is, google news makes it highly visible. Discovering that you useless hurts the feelings of the publishers - i can understand that. Obviously you need to be useful and ultimately to eat.
But force google to shut off will not solve the main problem.
What does it mean, "appended to the end of comments you post"
The actual law doesn't even allow a company to refuse the money that Google 'owes' them in order to stay in Google News.
Under the law the obligation to Google is "mandatory and non-renounceable".
They did this to avoid the German solution: You can be in Google News for free, otherwise you're out.
But that's what they wanted anyway, right?
Will Spain's gov compensate the media for lost volume? In fact, can these companies sue the gov for loss of business?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
France is a retarded country that does not deserve to be able to google.
Belgian Newspapers 'Give Permission' To Google To Return Them To Search Results/a?
I use google news quite a bit. It's essential for investors, for instance, if you need to know the latest company rumours.
But will it block the service for anyone with a Spanish IP, or is it just blocked from google.es?
And what about Bing, will they block Bing too?
Yet more geographic blocking (this time via the law) of a global service. Can anyone say .... VPN?
Is Franco still dead?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Believe it or not it was the Spanish written press/publishers lobby the one who pressured the Spanish government to develop this law.
Yes, THEY are the ones who demanded it.
Does Google ignore robots.txt for news sites? If not, those sites could just set it to make all their content invisible. Viola, problem solved.