Spanish News Publishers’ Association Asks Gov to Help Stop Google News Closure

https://www.thespainreport.com/13199/spanish-newspaper-publishers-association-now-asks-government-help-stop-google-news-closure/

by LukeB_UK • 12 years ago

56 27 12 years ago

thespainreport.com

rjayatilleka4• 12 years ago

Jeez. So do they have any proposed solution beyond "government intervention"? It's a fact that Google isn't going to pay to host Spanish news, nor can the government force them to do that. So either they need to

1. amend the law saying that Google is an exception, OR

2. amend the law to make payment for news snippets no longer an "inalienable right", OR

3. repeal the law.

Which in the end brings back the exact situation that was there before the law.

EDIT: Just realized that number 1 doesn't count. I don't think you can make an inalienable right and an exception to that right at the same time.

mtmail2• 12 years ago

In Germany all major publisher, including those that fought to get a similar law, signed contracts with Google allowing them to index without pay. All small aggregators and search engines still have to pay so the end result is that Google News Germany is more powerful than before. I expect something similar in Spain.

rjayatilleka4• 12 years ago

Yup, exactly. The only reason it didn't happen in Spain right away is the "inalienable right" clause, so that publisher's couldn't sign away the right to be paid. If that goes away, it'll be the same situation as Germany.

mcintyre19942• 12 years ago

Do we have any insight into why they made an exception for Google? The obvious starting point is Google threatening to stop search indexing sites they can't use in Google news - there might even be technical justification for that. But presumably the publishers would attack that as abusing a monopoly position, it seems pretty much textbook definition. They must have known signing with Google while that law existed would only make Google stronger like you said - so it'd be interesting to know why they'd do that.

mrottenkolber• 12 years ago

What do you do if the news organizations seem to have less integrity left than Google. It's a shameful display of German "journalism". Everyone in that lobby should just quit. Go to Pluto, go suck somewhere else at your "job".

I am angry and ashamed at the newspapers of my country.

mrtree• 12 years ago

I think you missed the point of the news:

First AEDE, the Spanish News Publishers’ Association lobbied for the law that created fees for web linking (pretty insane and ultimately unfeasible).

After the law was passed, Google said they would then close Google News Spain since they make no money with it.

Now AEDE seems to have changed its mind and is actually asking the opposite, for the government to prevent Google News closure.

Also, regarding your points: 1. You should not make arbitrary laws. 2 and 3 are good.

rjayatilleka4• 12 years ago

Yeah, I understand that AEDE (representing Spanish news companies) lobbied for the law, and now changed its mind to lobby against it. Regarding solution 1, yeah that's another good point. It's not a good idea to make one corporation an exception to a law.

joelrunyon• 12 years ago

Curious about this. I agree, Google gives more exposure, but Google does make money off of them.

I'm not as worried about this in news snippets (as it gives people something to read to decide to click which benefits the news content creators), but what about in situations where that's not the case?

There's a lot of searches that straight up scrape wikipedia and show the first paragraph as the result from google - thereby disincentivizing people to click on that result (and hurting the content creator).

Google's been creeping into the 'content" space over the past few years, both serving as a portal & serving up direct answers. I'm curious to if it will come back to haunt them in the future (or what content creators can do in response to this).

blfr• 12 years ago

If you feel that Google, or any other search engine, is ripping you off, you can use robots.txt to deny them access. They voluntarily agreed to follow rules laid there. You don't need to bother with a copyright argument.

If you represent a whole industry, like AEDE here, you can even roll out your own news aggregator. Since member outlets can shut Google out, it would be relatively easy to make this new site a popular, maybe even default, destination for news consumers. Then share profits however you believe is fair.

jackhammer• 12 years ago

Maybe they could circumvent the law by signing a contact where google pays the news organisations, but they in term pay google back for the "exposure". That way both parties would comply with the law and they would still maintain the status quo.

zanny2• 12 years ago

Except as Google is demonstrating by just outright closing Google News Spain, they don't have to put up with that bullshit. They are so big in so many countries dropping one won't do anything for their bottom line (especially when Google News itself makes them no money directly) and the news lobby in Spain gets to rip itself a new one destroying itself out of greed.

Zardoz84• 12 years ago

You should know that an Spanish "journalist" that defends that Google must pay and that they can't close Google News on Spain, say on public television that there is alternative like "Linux".

We live in a joke of country (I'm spanish)...

LukeB_UK• 12 years ago

Previous discussion on the closure of Google News in Spain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8732859

systemdturd• 12 years ago

Sigh. Dinosaurs stuck in their mindset continue to watch as their businesses disappear into the tarpits.

faragon• 12 years ago

My guess is that Spanish media pushed Spanish government for getting a "compensation" like the French publishers got -or will get- (60 € million) because of Google News operating in France. Google said, no, and then, the Spanish News Publishers' Association became worried because that would hurt them. So, they played a bluff, and they lost. Great victory for Google.

pepon• 12 years ago

If I were Google, I would start charging a fee for being indexed in Google news.

Spanish News Publishers’ Association Asks Gov to Help Stop Google News Closure

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