Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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?
Is Slashdot paying Reuters and the BBC for the stories summarized and linked to here? Do you think they should be?
Google does share; it's not a file sharing site where you get a copy of the content. The Spanish news services are about to realize that traffic sent to their sites was worth more than the revenue they were trying to squeeze out of Google.
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!
There's a potential difference. The problem is that Google News has become a one-stop-shop for many people (myself included). This means that we don't stay on the newspaper site, going back to Google News to look for the next interesting story. This means that advertising revenues on the content sites are minimal, and pretty much every news site on the entire internet is a loss-making enterprise. This is unsustainable.
Google's solution to claims of profiting off others' work was to run Google News without any advertising content, but that doesn't deal with the fact that Google News is a contributory factor to the financial woes of the content providers it relies on. If Google wants Google News to survive, it must exist in a viable ecosystem, and right now it doesn't. Even if you don't think this is Google's fault, the problem still exists and must be dealt with.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Free advertising for a loss making product isn't particularly valuable. Advertising revenues have plunged for news sites because they aren't "sticky" enough.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
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.
No they're not. Why did News International raise a paywall on their sites? Because site advertising wasn't covering their running costs. The newspapers need a business model that delivers profits. It may be that the Spanish press feel that without Google News it will be easier to have paid subscriptions. It may be that they believe that without Google News, their site "stickiness" will increase, and the value of advertising will increase. Either way, continuing to operate at a loss is no long-term solution.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
They should build better websites. The reason I don't stay on most news websites is not google news, it's paywalls, obtrusive ads, autoplaying videos, etc.
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'
Most of the people going to any particular new site aren't local (maybe not even the same country), so how are they "losing"? If they use a news aggregator that serves up geo-related or user-related ads (such as google), they at least have the ability to make some coin, rather than showing ads that are totally irrelevant to someone in another country.
Newspapers aren't in the news business - they're in the advertising business. That's always been the case, with the exception of the old pamphleteers, which were more like editorials anyway.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
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.
There is at least one other instance I am aware of that might suggest you are correct:
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
I typically dont go past the slashdot article, I am willing to bet that it is relativity the same amount of people on both that stop or click though.
so if it is not googles fault it is still googles responsibility to fix it, not the sites themselves, according to your theory?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
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...
Google's solution to claims of profiting off others' work was to run Google News without any advertising content, but that doesn't deal with the fact that Google News is a contributory factor to the financial woes of the content providers it relies on. If Google wants Google News to survive, it must exist in a viable ecosystem, and right now it doesn't. Even if you don't think this is Google's fault, the problem still exists and must be dealt with.
In the good old days, newspapers really didn't make that much from subscriptions. Most of their revenue was from advertising. Google, by making a story from a given site that probably has ads, is helping.
The bigger problem news outlets have is that they no longer have captive audiences. In transitioning to electronic delivery, they've failed to maintain their value to local merchants in favor of taking advertising dollars from big companies. Personally, I could read an online newspaper that has ads like a newspaper, but no, they have to make them animated, intrusive and obnoxious. That's why online news sucks and loses money.
But Google doesn't make any money on their Spanish news site; they were driving traffic to the sites of the companies that are now banning Google News from Spain.
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.
Because site advertising wasn't covering their running costs. The newspapers need a business model that delivers profits
That's a different issue. The publishers are trying to become profitable by selling their content rather than through advertising. They could have used Google to send them visitors who are willing to pay, but instead they tried to sell directly to Google. Google declined to make the purchase. Sounds like a poor decision by the publishers.
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.
no ads on google news as far as i can remember...
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"
Don't forget the big one: The quality of news articles mostly sucks. Most news publishers are failures at providing good news stories. Aggregators separate the wheat from a larger pool of chaff.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
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.
Yes, but the value of each page impression in advertising in print media comes from knowing the demographic that you're selling to. The only really successful virtual newspaper I know of is The Register, and they can handle their own advertising content precisely because they have a specific demographic. Their readership consists mainly of tech professionals with geeky hobbies, and there are multiple big sponsors looking to get the attention of that audience -- whether it's IT vendors like Citrix or Cisco, or the studio behind Transformers trying to sell robot nostalgia to the children of the 80s. But if you don't have a demographic, you're left scraping the same barrel as the lowliest bloggers, getting an ad aggregator to pay you fractions of a cent for impressions.
The problem for newspaper is precisely that -- that they're in the advertising business, and the advertising model isn't working for them. Getting off the aggregators is a way to rebuild that idea of having a "readership", a particular group that come to you for the stories; but it doesn't work if only some of the newspapers do it.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
In the good old days, newspapers really didn't make that much from subscriptions.
True fact.
Most of their revenue was from advertising.
True fact.
Google, by making a story from a given site that probably has ads, is helping.
Untrue conjecture.
The bigger problem news outlets have is that they no longer have captive audiences.
Replace the word "captive" with "specific", and you have the truth.
The problem isn't just about location, but about wider demographics. By virtue of having a particular voluntary readership (whether that readership is "locals", or "geeks", or "conservatives", or "working-class people"), the newspaper had a premium product for the advertisers -- it was a form of targeted advertising in and of itself. It also associated the product with the newspaper brand, for extra positive effect.
A link from Google News does nothing to build up a demographic, or to build up the brand. A link from Google News is a low value proposition for advertisers, and the newspapers need a high value proposition.
Google News is not good news for the newspapers.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Ah yes. Spend more money, and put less advertising on the site. That's obviously going to work.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Unfortunately, one of the big drivers for the drop in journalistic quality is the lack of money coming in. The quality of journalism ten to twenty years ago didn't stop the decline in revenues, so reintroducing similar quality won't magically bring the money back either.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Sounds like a win-win. The big problem all news houses have is that if they step out of Google News individually, it doesn't change the market, and they just end up with a smaller audience share. If they all step out together, there will be cries of "collusion" and "cartels". But the legislation gave Google a choice: if Google News was important to them, they would have paid; but it wasn't, so they switched off. Now it is possible for Spanish news outlets to build their own audience again, and even if overall eyeballs decrease, the value of individual ads will increase again, because they have their own demographic to market to.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
One of the problems is that most newspapers, in order to attract a more varied readership, added things like "Lifestye" and other "soft news/no news" content. That worked in the 80s and 90s but it doesn't work any more because people can get the no-news stuff from anywhere, so in the end, by diluting their main content, they've lost their core audience - people who want news, editorials, and related stuff.
It's like slashdot adding Bennett whats-his-name's ruminations. Dilutes the product, alienates^Wp*sses off the core readership, and ends up being counter-productive.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
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?
The UK's Daily Mail has taken casual "soft" content to the extreme. Their website is like a gossip mag and nothing like their print edition.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Is Slashdot paying Reuters and the BBC for the stories summarized and linked to here? Do you think they should be?
There's a potential difference. The problem is that Google News has become a one-stop-shop for many people (myself included). This means that we don't stay on the newspaper site, going back to Google News to look for the next interesting story.
Isn't Slashdot exactly the same?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I tend to agree. The free information age has put a number of obstacles in the way of news providers. It took most news providers many years to opt into the free information age but possibly too late. When they finally got onboard, most news providers had sites built but the content and quality of presentation was poor to say the least. Limited articles (for non subscribers) and crappy layouts. Many of them are better now but with google and yahoo news, who needs them now?
Where is my -10 Idiocy choice?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
And the other crime is google replicating news headlines and summary on its site reduces the news site's income and visibility, because while the news site creates the news story, people don't visit the site unless they are really interested in the article. Only google profits from this at the expense of the news site.
In short, since hardly anyone reads TFA (just like slashdot readers), they simply skim the headline and summary, no one will visit the news site. They will instead get their news from google news' summaries and google has no intention of paying news sites for this content.
For what you are saying to be correct they could have used robots.txt. They did not do that. The other facet that contradicts your comment is that the payment was mandatory. A news publication, blog or anyone cannot choose not to mandate the payment. So forward thinking next generation news sites cannot decide their own model. If these sites are so concerned about remaining profitable by the money Google was preventing them from gathering they could put up a pay wall as well. Oh wait no one is going to pay these cronied sites for their news, because it isn't valuable.
Something may well need to be done, but the ball is in the newspaper's court. If they produce news articles that are interesting for more than one paragraph, they will get ad impressions. If they're just re-stating what another news agency already said, what good are they and why do they expect money for that?
What happened to newspapers that actually dug for real news, even exclusives? Back in the day when they prided themselves over how many times their reporters were thrown out, beaten up, or otherwise obviously displeased someone by reporting on actual news that people didn't know about yet?
Loss of revenue 20 years ago cannot be blamed on the net. In 1994, it was mostly college students on the net.
But by that point, quality was already shot with a lot of papers reduced to wire service articles and who-shot-who.
Is Franco still dead?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
A lot of the "news" are actually newsvertisements or taken out verbatim from another news agency like Reuters anyway.
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.