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Google Scraps Controversial Policy That Gave Free Access To Paywalled Articles Through Search (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

For years, Google has provided a nifty trick to get around subscriptions for newspapers and magazines. But the company is now doing away with it. From a report: Google is ending its controversial First Click Free (FCF) policy that publishers loathed because it required them to allow Google search results access to news articles hidden behind a paywall. The company is replacing the decade-old FCF with Flexible Sampling, which allows publishers instead to decide how many (if any) articles they want to allow potential subscribers to access. Google says it's also working on a suite of new tools to help publishers reach new audiences and grow revenue. Via FCF, users could access an article for free but would be prompted to log-in or subscribe if they clicked anywhere else on the page. Publishers were required to allow three free articles per day which Google indexed so that they appeared in searches for a particular topic or keyword. Opting out of the FCF feature was detrimental because it demoted a publisher's ranking on Google Search and Google News.

6 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. One can only hope. by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hopefully, Google will also recognize paywalled sites and refuse to index them, or at least put them at the bottom of the results.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:One can only hope. by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also hopefully Trump will trip and fall into a fucking cuisinart,

      This is a horribly thing to wish for.

      If it happened, we'd have Pence as our president, which would be even worse.

    2. Re:One can only hope. by swillden · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also hopefully Trump will trip and fall into a fucking cuisinart,

      This is a horribly thing to wish for.

      If it happened, we'd have Pence as our president, which would be even worse.

      No, it wouldn't. Pence is a more manageable sort of crazy.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  2. Best Solution by Luthair · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Give me as a user the optional to hide sites with paywalls.

  3. What a coincedence by Bill+Hayden · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I too have a decades-old policy: I don't use pay-walled sites.

    --
    Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
  4. Sigh, Google by mysidia · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I DONT WANT content in search results that I can't actually view.

    Fine, get rid of FCF if you want, but then either blacklist subscription sites from search indexes, OR require indexed content match what I can see and
    give me a checkbox to omit them from search results (preferably checked by default).