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Google Considering Pulling News Service From Europe (bloomberg.com)
Google is considering pulling its Google News service from Europe as regulators work toward a controversial copyright law. From a report: The European Union's Copyright Directive will give publishers the right to demand money from Alphabet, Facebook and other web platforms when fragments of their articles show up in news search results, or are shared by users. The law was supposed to be finalized this week but was delayed by disagreement among member states.
Google News might quit the continent in response to the directive, said Jennifer Bernal, Google's public policy manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The internet company has various options, and a decision to pull out would be based on a close reading of the rules and taken reluctantly, she said. "The council needs more time to reflect in order to reach a solid position" on the directive, said a representative of Romania, current head of the European Council, which represents the 28 member nations.
Google News might quit the continent in response to the directive, said Jennifer Bernal, Google's public policy manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The internet company has various options, and a decision to pull out would be based on a close reading of the rules and taken reluctantly, she said. "The council needs more time to reflect in order to reach a solid position" on the directive, said a representative of Romania, current head of the European Council, which represents the 28 member nations.
I presume the fuss is over the supposed "hyper-link tax" which has to be one the most idiotic ideas I've come across in my adult life.
Why presume when you can actually find out? The article says:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
Google is considering pulling its Google News service from Europe as regulators work toward a controversial copyright law. The European Union’s Copyright Directive will give publishers the right to demand money from the Alphabet Inc. unit, Facebook Inc. and other web platforms when fragments of their articles show up in news search results, or are shared by users.
The wikipedia page for the EU Copyright Directive explains:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The proposal [includes...] exemptions for either copying an "insubstantial" part of a work ... The version of the directive voted on by European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs contained explicit exemptions for the act of hyperlinking and "legitimate private and non-commercial use of press publications by individual users"
So it looks like this is specifically *not* about a "hyperlink tax", and either Google specifically wants to be copying substantial parts of a copyright work without paying the owners, or something more subtle is going on (and hence we can expect to see simplifications, distortions, and clickbait designed to inflame responses).
It is not a hyper-link tax. You can link all you want. What you cannot do anymore is scrape some of the content from the site, call it a quote, and present it on your own site without consent from the copyright owner.