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Google News May Shut in Some Countries Over EU Plans To Charge Tax For Links (theguardian.com)
Google's top news executive has refused to rule out shutting down Google News in EU countries, as the search engine faces a battle with Brussels over plans to charge a "link tax" for using news stories. The Guardian reports: Richard Gingras, the search engine's vice-president of news, said while "it's not desirable to shut down services" the company was deeply concerned about the current proposals, which are designed to compensate struggling news publishers if snippets of their articles appear in search results. He told the Guardian that the future of Google News could depend on whether the EU was willing to alter the phrasing of the legislation. "We can't make a decision until we see the final language," he said. He pointed out the last time a government attempted to charge Google for links, in 2014 in Spain, the company responded by shutting down Google News in the country. Spain passed a law requiring aggregation sites to pay for news links, in a bid to prop up struggling print news outlets. Google responded by closing the service for Spanish consumers, which he said prompted a fall in traffic to Spanish news websites. "We would not like to see that happen in Europe," said Gingras. "Right now what we want to do is work with stakeholders."
If you read the proposal, there's no link tax.
Google being passive aggressive here, I guess.
In short, Google are saying, "If I cannot play for free, then I'll take my ball altogether."
I do not think those Europeans will stand to be without Google News for long.
The original problem was the Google News would show enough of the story that people didn't go to the originating site to read it. When asked to reduce it to the headline and a link they pulled the "we're Google and we can do what we want" card. Which is why Spain started charging
As a European I won't miss it one bit. Its shite.
The EU wants to charge a tax for links? Jesus. I'm glad I opted not to move there a few years back. The EU has gone batshit crazy already.
If I lived in the EU right now I would tell my boss to suck it and take the first flight out of there.
This is probably also passed by politicians that have never used a computer or don't understand what the impact of the legislation is? Every time I think there is a chance for the EU we get news of some old school thinking screwing with the road forward.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
How would you link to a news article if you can't use the headline?
Why bother doing the reading when you can just rage. I'm with u brother arrrrgggghhhhh!
Never use it personally, so I won't care either way.
That said I think this is exactly the right response by google.
A link tax is completely retarded and the only way is to inconvenience people until they get off their ass and make it clear to all their politicians that the laws they are enacting are stupid..
Is the eu requiring google to run news, and also requiring them to pay shitty euro publishers for it.
Us Europeans will not miss it one bit, the European printing business that was behind this legislation however will miss it quite a bit since Google News is a major source of users that end up on the various news papers sites.
All they'd have to do is charge the news outlets for listing their articles. Problem solved. Lol.
Spain passed a law requiring aggregation sites to pay for news links, in a bid to prop up struggling print news outlets. Google responded by closing the service for Spanish consumers, which he said prompted a fall in traffic to Spanish news websites.
And there it is, same as usual. Google is directing traffic to these site, helping them generate ad revenue, but somehow still owes them. Don't misunderstand me here, I'm no Google cheerleader and the EU does sometimes make good points regarding some issues (like privacy), but I know a shakedown when I see one. As usual, the EU is just trying to skim money off the American companies to make up for their own lack of homegrown innovation. Notice how they'll never target Ecosia or Qwant for any of their ridiculous stuff.
Also the lobby of the printing press managed to convince the politicians that all grass root opposition to this legislation where just paid lobby groups from Google and Facebook.
Which is fine: the entire IDEA of the web is to make data accessible to others. That is literally what it is for.
If you don't like that, there is a solution for you. Implement your own paywall.
This is probably also passed by politicians that have never used a computer or don't understand what the impact of the legislation is? Every time I think there is a chance for the EU we get news of some old school thinking screwing with the road forward.
It feels like Europe sees non-European companies harvesting profits from their population and wants a piece.
you mean like /. is doing :)
will set up servers inside the USA and/or other nations outside the EU because they will lose a lot of web traffic when google pulls the plug...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Google will not pull Google News out for any appreciable amount of time, since if they do another company will quickly step in and fill the void.
Google knows it needs all that data about its users in order to keep its true customers happy.
#DeleteChrome
You would think the EU would look at Spain and the consequences their news industry suffered. But they are like politicians everywhere: corrupt, stupid, and begging to be strung up by a short rope in a tall tree.
The original problem was the Google News would show enough of the story that people didn't go to the originating site to read it. When asked to reduce it to the headline and a link...
On the other hand, headlnes are often bogus attention-grabbers, serving as both eye- and click-bait. Allowing aggregators to post only headline plus link encourages news sites to accelerate this trend.
The user needs enough context beyond the headline to determine whether the article is about something he actually wants to read. Of course, giving him this means he doesn't follow some links, which might be what is producing the signal that the EU legislators are concerned about.
There's a (thick) line between giving enough context to let the user skip the uninteresting and irrelevant chaff (good) and enough more that he gets the valuable reporting without following the link (I.P. appropriation).
Allowing aggregators to occupy some patch on that line is an application of "fair use". Legislation to define that region needs to take this into account. "Just headline plus link" is clearly outside that patch.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
> Google will not pull Google News out for any appreciable amount of time, since if they do another company will quickly step in and fill the void.
Not if the competitor also has to pay per link. No one will touch that business. There's no business model in individual clicks with aggregation.
The modern EU nation state takes the fun and freedom of the innovative US internet and adds a new EU link tax.
Only EU bureaucrats could take something as amazing and free as the internet and work hard to add a link tax.
Publish behind a paywall and take the paper readers to a paying digital version if the EU publication has value.
Don't tax the internet for the inability to keep a media empire in profit.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Google News can go fuck itself with a rusty cheese grater for all I care.
But still, the idea to tax these things is a delicate issue. Having read the currently approved proposal of Article 11 I know that the wording is pretty vague. Certainly not enough to be sure for what they really want. In its current form it would allow "mere hyperlinks accompanied by individual words". Mere hyperlinks, sure. Those usually also contain the head line. But what the hell is "individual words" supposed to mean here? How much leeway can you have here as a for profit company? Would you be able to write a small synopsis of the article in your own individual words?
Every time I hear about Europe and the internet/tech its about how EU wants to tax/fine/punish/legislate/regulate something. Never about the latest thing, or the cool new invention, or whatever. Always taxes-fines-punish-etc.
This all the stranger because there's a lot of Europeans per se who've done all kinds of things for the internet. Lee invented the web, Guido invented Python, Linus invented all kinds of stuff. And they all work in the US now for US companies. Nokia gone. Ericsson hurting. Phillips now cheap Wal Mart TV's. Thompson...who's that? lol. ARM is "European" in sense of a street address for corporate HQ and nothing else.
Poor Europe.
Google is not a charity - it provides the Google News service because it makes money off the Google News service. And, given it's making money off the service, there is room for it find a compromise with the content providers - or, for a competitor to do so if Google pulls out.
#DeleteChrome
That would be quite easy. Remove the taxation loopholes and force taxation of profits made in country x to country x instead of double Irish shenanigans.
Many of the fake news problems have (IMO) been caused by publishers relying on the numbers coming to their pages instead of the quality of their news. As an alternative, look at the Economist Group (Owners of the Economist). They rely on subscriptions and seem to be doing just fine in the face of the Internet.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
While in general I really don't like Trump, it would be satisfying in a primal way if he told their news orgs, "Get with the times you loser luddites and stop interfering with US companies!". He scratches the itch of the inner caveman.
Table-ized A.I.
... shut down free advertising for them. Everyone else tries to get google to provide lots of links to their site.
They may have smaller houses; but on average they are healthier, live longer, have longer vacations, and better safety nets.
Maybe their trickle-down via regulation/taxes has something going for it. To them, there's more important things in life than "big toys".
Table-ized A.I.
A link tax is completely retarded
Scrolled too far for this.
Ergo: the EUSSR is retarded.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
If only there was a meta tag for sites to tell google exactly what to show in the headline/snippet for a search result.
No sig today...
Except for the south and the east.
This is probably also passed by politicians that have never used a computer or don't understand what the impact of the legislation is? Every time I think there is a chance for the EU we get news of some old school thinking screwing with the road forward.
It feels like Europe sees non-European companies harvesting profits from their population and wants a piece.
Perhaps the EU can makes it's own version of Google. If it is better, then Google won't be used. Call it Eugle?
If money is what they want - perhaps they can put in the work to make it? Or just kick Google out and not allow EU citizens to access it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Why is the EU trying to prop up broken business models, thats a 'merkin thing.
Google AI Synopses. But then would the AI production counted as a separate work and would the lack of that status cause issues with copyright? Copyright is used apparently to protect some historical tourist locations from being photographed as well.
The countries you mentioned have recently seceded from the Soviet Union and are still getting their democracy sea legs. It's premature to characterize them in a general way.
Table-ized A.I.
Google being passive aggressive here, I guess.
In short, Google are saying, "If I cannot play for free, then I'll take my ball altogether."
Nope. If google has to start paying you to to provide search hits for your site then their whole company collapses.
I do not think those Europeans will stand to be without Google News for long.
I can't wait for them to spend huge resources getting these laws passed only to see their web sites vanish from the web.
Yes, they are that stupid. It's already happened here in Spain.
No sig today...
Google is not a charity
Correct, but these laws would turn it into one.
PS: The news sites google is sending people to are full of adverts, etc. Should Google get a cut of that.
No sig today...
Those usually also contain the head line. But what the hell is "individual words" supposed to mean here? How much leeway can you have here as a for profit company? Would you be able to write a small synopsis of the article in your own individual words?
There's an HTML tag to tell google what to put in the article summary. All those 'dictionary' sites (for example) fill it with fluff so that google doesn't show the actual word definition, it's all "We;re the best dictionary, get the best definition of XXX here! We're the best!".
Newspapers could do exactly the same if they wanted. They think they can get free money instead so fuck 'em.
No sig today...
The reason you only hear that us because that type of news sells better.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Huh?
Every time I hear about Europe and the internet/tech its about how EU wants to tax/fine/punish/legislate/regulate something. Never about the latest thing, or the cool new invention, or whatever. Always taxes-fines-punish-etc. This all the stranger because there's a lot of Europeans per se who've done all kinds of things for the internet.
You are literally contradicting yourself there.
Unless in pragraph 1 you are referring ot the "EU" as "Europe" and in paragraph 2 not. That's the only way it makes sense. And even then, barely. The EU is a legislative body. That's literally its job.
ARM is "European" in sense of a street address for corporate
That and it was founded here and most of the designers still work in the ARM HQ in Cambridge.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I do not think those Europeans will stand to be without Google News for long.
European here.
What is Google News?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, but Somalia is a good cue. Move there if you don't want to pay taxes, I heard they're pretty close to zero.
And there's much free real estate now too!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hey, in Europe we respect the right to kill yourself before you get to kill others.
That's why you get to drink when you're 16 and drive a car or operate a gun when you're 18. With a hint of luck, those 2 years is enough to weed out the worst.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Poe's Law is strong in this one. Really can't tell whether it's sarcasm or ignorance.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's tyranny when a country takes back control from corporations. Are we at that point already where an elected body taking power from one that is literally based on "might (money) makes right" is tyranny?
I can almost see George Washington and Jesus looking down and George saying "Remember when you said 'if I had known what that ends up as...'? I get your point now".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I lived in the EU right now I would tell my boss to suck it and take the first flight out of there.
Interesting this implies one or more of 3 things:
a) You know of some mythical government that doesn't occasionally attempt to pass batshit stupid laws.
b) You feel more strongly about a link tax than things that actually impact your life.
c) You're off your medication and your carer is worried sick looking for you.
Dude, kicking donkeys is animal abuse!
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Then again, so are those who call the EU "EUSSR".
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
If you run a VPN to somewhere else, what country is your browser in? You might be in Europe, but if your browser is in America then it's covered by American laws.
Every time I hear about Europe and the internet/tech its about how EU wants to tax/fine/punish/legislate/regulate something. Never about the latest thing, or the cool new invention, or whatever. Always taxes-fines-punish-etc.
Congradulations on becoming self-aware enough to realise that you live in an echo chamber.
Mind you it depends on how you define the latest thing. Some of the arguably most valuable things to come out of the USA have been Facebook and Uber. If you limit your view of innovation to IT related unicorns then there's no doubt that the USA holds an absolute monopoly on that, there is however a doubt whether that is a worthy claim to fame.
In terms of innovation the Global Innovation Index however shows parts of Europe well ahead of the USA. Though we can't claim that as a complete EU success since the number one country is European but not in the Union. In order:
Switzerland
The Netherlands
Sweden
United Kingdom
Singapore
United States of America
Finland
Denmark
Germany
Ireland
But while you're in your echo chamber let's look at your examples: ... TVs? I didn't know they still made those. I only recognise them as the company that provided an alternative to incadescent lighting which doesn't suck, industrial sensors, although they divested NXP into a separate company they are a powerhouse in semiconductors, but you ignore their biggest market, medical. My last CT scan was in a Philips machine. But if you want to limit new innovation then start with their most recent development, every tried to recusistate a baby? More often than not it results in death due to damage to lungs and airways. Well Philips only anounced last month a cheap system designed to ensure that infant recusitation can be done by any first aider, not just experts.
Nokia: Yep, gone. Destroyed by an American company.
Ericsson: Developed and demonstrated the first viable 5G technology, and brought it to market with the help of the ghost of Nokia.
Phillips:
I am still amazed you mentioned ARM but not NXP. Your echo chamber is pretty damn good, probably controlled by an NXP Kinetis ARM Cortex-M series processor. ;-)
Poor Europe.
In what way? The USA Poverty rate is worse than the worst EU country, and about double the average EU country. Don't cry for us. We're doing fine.
In the government controlled areas of Somalia they have taxes, in the Islam extremist zones they would have Islamic taxes, in the none of the above zones they would have men with guns collecting protection money. Failed state doesn't mean you don't pay someone. If you want to not pay taxes try forming a church. They get tax exempt like a (real) charity.
Interesting. It seem that you do pay tax, one way or another, no matter what you do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most Europeans are not properly educated on how much they depend on the US. The US is almost exclusively depicted in a negative way and blamed for stuff, while the US is almost never depicted in a positive way and given its due credit. A lot of Europeans directly link their view of their own individual countries and the EU/Europe as a whole to their view of the US as a point of contrast. Because they see things along those lines, and because they want to depict themselves as being superior to the US, they must as a matter of necessity see the US in an unrealistically negative way. Acknowledging that the EU is dependent on the US doesn't help the cause. There are definitely leaders in Europe who are aware of how much Europe depends on the US for defense, but this fact is not in anyway conducive to the larger political agenda and geopolitical outlook in Europe which is all about integration and European unity. In fact, support for the EU is very closely related to anti-Americanism. On reddit you'll see a lot of Europeans admit very openly that they support the EU because they see it as a rival to the US.
A lot of hate Europeans have for the US is not only a product of their ignorance of their dependence on the US, it's also *because of* their dependence on the US. Europeans take the US for granted and many of those that are aware of their dependence on the US still hate the US because playing second fiddle to the US stings their pride.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
If I recall correctly the thinking was that Google blocked Spain because Spain is small so if "we" expand the same legislation to the whole of EU then Google will abide due to them not willing to miss out on the larger EU market.
That is more or less what the printing industry claimed in the news over here; that they was not afraid that Google would simple go away. So hopefully Google will just go away and then we will see how long it will take for the printing lobby to double back.
It depends on whether you need to be as big as Google to make that happen or not. I.e due to how big Google are they can manage to get all the advertisers for their service, something that a new small player will have a much harder time doing. Anyway it will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the end.
you hear only those things because you're reading US news sites, but don't worry, on EU sites we read how great the EU is and about the many fails of US/Asia. I'm sure on other continent news sites it's the same story (we are great, the rest is fail).
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.