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Google EU The Almighty Buck News

Google Agrees To Pay French News Sites To Send Them Traffic (arstechnica.com) 109

Posted by BeauHD from the cough-it-up dept.
Timothy B. Lee reports via Ars Technica: French news sites have prevailed in negotiations with Google over "neighboring rights," a new legal right granted by the 2019 EU Copyright Directive. An agreement between Google and the French news industry "establishes a framework within which Google will negotiate individual licensing agreements" with individual news organizations, according to Google. Under these deals, French news articles will be featured in a new Google product called News Showcase.

"The remuneration that is included in these licensing agreements is based on criteria such as the publisher's contribution to political and general information, the daily volume of publications, and its monthly internet traffic," according to the announcement. The agreement is particularly significant because it offers a model for other European countries that want to force Google to fork over cash to their own news sites. In the past, Google's hardball tactics deterred most European countries from trying to force Google to pay up. But with the passage of the EU copyright directive, European countries formed a united front against Google, making it much harder for Google to resist. Google's capitulation in France will weaken its bargaining position as other European countries pass their own versions of the French law and news organizations in other countries line up for their share of Google cash.
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Google Agrees To Pay French News Sites To Send Them Traffic More

Google Agrees To Pay French News Sites To Send Them Traffic

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  • How come they are not paying all businesses, in all countries if it is fair in France? And why only pay the sites pretending to be news.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      ''if it is fair in France''

      Seems kinda redundant. Because it's France. You know the home of Renault, Bordeaux and Champaign.
      They still think the above is the best of class in the world. The rest is pretty self explanatory.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        fred911 observed:

        ''if it is fair in France''

        Seems kinda redundant. Because it's France. You know the home of Renault, Bordeaux and Champaign.

        Champaign is in Illinois.

        The French wine-growing region is Champagne [wikipedia.org] ...

        (Posted anonymously only so as not to undo positive mods to previous comments on this story.)

        --

        Check out my novel [amazon.com].

      • To be fair wines from Bordeaux are best in class. Renault not so much, and champagne, never really liked it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      - Why only France? Because the french government only deals with businesses in France. Google has headquarters in France so it counts.
      - Why only news? Because Google treats news sites differently. Most notably, there is a special "news" section.

  • New product! (Score:3)

    by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @09:41PM (#60976542) Homepage

    Under these deals, French news articles will be featured in a new Google product called News Showcase.

    And probably no where else.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ecuador ( 740021 )

      Well, no, as I understand it they will still show up in organic searches, just not get paid for those. Which is fair, I mean, I am the first throw Google under a bus for all the shit they've been doing to the internet, but sites wanting to be paid to be indexed by search engines is absurd, regardless whether the search engines are monopolies or not. If your robots.txt says you want to get indexed, it means you want your pages to appear in searches so that people can find them - that's a benefit search engin

  • Meanwhile in Australia... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by niftydude ( 1745144 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @09:42PM (#60976544)
    In related news, Google threatens to disable search in Australia if they have to do the same thing there. https://www.smh.com.au/politic... [smh.com.au]
    • Came here to post that. Google (Australia) says it is "unworkable". They haven't timed this well.

      • Re: Meanwhile in Australia... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by powerspike ( 729889 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @10:05PM (#60976618)

        What the Australian government is trying to do here is worse. the news agency's basically are able to set the rate to be paid. The new laws also make it illegal for google to deindex them if they fail to come up with an agreement on price. Also they have to tell the news companies how their algo's work - and give written notice 30(?) days in advance of an algo update.

        With the way the laws are now, the 2 options are pay what the news companies demand, or withdraw google search from the Australian market.

        • But it's an empty threat. Google would never withdraw a service as fundamental as search. That leaves one option. Europe seems to be leading the way.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Depends how valuable the Australian market is to Google, and how much of that revenue they would lose by redirecting people to the generic google.com instead of google.com.au.

            • If Google were to disclose their algorithms, they could potentially lose their competitive advantage worldwide. This will likely end up being arbitrated as part of some trade agreement. Probably the US government will defend Google and then the world will decry the US as evil and half of the US will decide that Joe Biden did it in favor of Google helping him win the election. But the reality is that they are essentially demanding that Google pay an infinite amount of money and I hope that a more reasonab
          • The difference in australiaâ(TM)s case is that they are trying to make them give up their algorithm - which would cripple them globally. So it would be better to pull out of australia.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          illegal for google to deindex them

          Google can just redirect Aus. searches to Baidu.

        • Re: Meanwhile in Australia... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Rip!ey ( 599235 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @11:29PM (#60976768)

          With the way the laws are now, the 2 options are pay what the news companies demand, or withdraw google search from the Australian market.

          They can withdraw Google search from the Australian market, but it will cost them. Google search is tied heavily to Android products including Googles own.

          You're not allowed to claim something as an integral part of a bundled product and then switch it off after the fact. The ACCC would have a field day.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by swilver ( 617741 )

            It's really simple. They will withdraw if projected profits are less than projected costs (including lawsuits). And if that happens to Google, then I doubt Australia will have any search engines in the near future.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fred911 ( 83970 )

          ''Also they have to tell the news companies how their algo's work - and give written notice 30(?) days in advance of an algo update.''

          Theory and best practice about how their algorithm functions are public information. Surely, the algorithm is modified multiple times in the course of a month to combat rank abuse and other necessary changes to facilitate useful and relevant query returns for users. They'll never play that game, nor should they be expected to.

    • The game is not about linking or search engines for News. It is about presenting targeted Google ads using ALL of Googles knowledge on that user. News is just a heads up that a purchaser is online, ready for a torrent of impressions - push ads. If Google removes SEARCH functionality for Australia, it seems reasonable to the right to DELETE all search history on all Australians in Googles database - the right to forget. My bet is this holy trove of dossiers will be hotly retained. The money is not on linkin

  • Typical Content Mafia (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @09:43PM (#60976552)

    They want to get paid ... to get paid.

    Call me when I can call my money "labor property", and demand people sell me shit and accept copies of my money as "payment", and then have the audacity to sue somebody who doesn't want to give me free shit and pay *me* or it too!

    We're working for our shit over here, you assholes!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nahor ( 41537 )

      That's only one side of the coin.
      The other side is: how many people only read a snippet and do not go to the website? If it wasn't for Google, I would go to the website to see the headlines, and that website would be paid in ads dollars. With Google News/search, that doesn't happen anymore.

      So on one hand, the website *may* get more traffic from search and the news wall, but on the other, it *may* get less traffic because people are satisfied with just reading the headlines. The problem is where is the line,

  • Pay Google for inclusion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ossifer ( 703813 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @10:23PM (#60976656)

    Not sure why the money is flowing in this direction. Shouldnâ(TM)t the content creators pay Google for driving traffic to their site?

    • Re:Pay Google for inclusion (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @10:36PM (#60976676)

      Shhh. You are going to upset the TV networks. Who get paid by cable systems for providing them with viewers.

      The laws make no sense until you can find out who has the best cocaine and hookers.

    • Re:Pay Google for inclusion (Score:5, Informative)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @10:42PM (#60976688)

      Not sure why the money is flowing in this direction. Shouldnâ(TM)t the content creators pay Google for driving traffic to their site?

      Sure, Google should be able to extort money from content creators in whatever way they see fit because the Google monopoly [statcounter.com] is the only game in down when it comes to making your content discoverable. If Google wants to be a monopoly then Google had better get used to playing by different rules than businesses who are doing business in other markets where customers have an actual choice because in those markets, unlike the search engine market, there is actual fierce competition between many service providers. The way things are at the moment, if you want your blog or something to be discoverable and Google is not indexing it for whatever reason stupidity, incompetence or one of Google's demented AIs just deems your site unworthy of being indexed, you are basically fucked because there is no competitor with a worthwhile market share to deal with.

      • Re:Pay Google for inclusion (Score:4, Insightful)

        by vakuona ( 788200 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @04:58AM (#60977230)

        Two issues with this.

        1. Google is not the only way to make your content discoverable.
        2. So what if it were true? There is a lot of value created in getting people to discover content. It is not clear that value belongs to the content creator.

        • Two issues with this.

          1. Google is not the only way to make your content discoverable.
          2. So what if it were true? There is a lot of value created in getting people to discover content. It is not clear that value belongs to the content creator.

          1. No, you can use one of the other search engines that collectively command 10% of the search engine market share to make your content discoverable and thereby reach a potential glorious maximum of 10% of the potential customer base.
          2. What does that even mean?

          furthermore:
          3. Competition is always preferable to monopoly.
          4. There is no competition in the internet search market.
          5. Anybody who believes monopolies are somehow better than a competitive environment should have their head examined.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by vakuona ( 788200 )

            What I meant with the second statement is value doesn't exist in a vacuum.

            Value is created when supply meets demand. News organisations are incapable of supplying their would be customers with their product. Google is better able to do that, and their reward for that is eyeballs and advertiser revenue. If news organisations were better able to supply their customers, they would have just withdrawn their content off Google. The fact that they haven't suggests they are getting enough value out of Google.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Discoverability is only part of it. Some of Google's services, like News and the new tab page in Chrome and the Android home screen feed make use of snippets of articles. They make money for Google even if the user does not click through.

        It's like if someone used a clip of your song on their ad with a little link to where the listener could buy it, and then claimed that you should be grateful because they are helping people discover your music. You would probably still want to get paid a licence fee for tha

        • Discoverability is only part of it. Some of Google's services, like News and the new tab page in Chrome and the Android home screen feed make use of snippets of articles. They make money for Google even if the user does not click through.

          It's like if someone used a clip of your song on their ad with a little link to where the listener could buy it, and then claimed that you should be grateful because they are helping people discover your music. You would probably still want to get paid a licence fee for that clip, since they are clearly not using it just to help you out but rather to make money for themselves.

          That's true as well, I would consider a tiny link inadequate compensation for the use of my work. The problem with Google is the same as the problem with Amazon, they are too big and they use their monopoly position to rip everybody off and stifle competition. People got incensed when a bunch of Amazon execs had a conversation about hunting book publishers 'like gazelles' and then laughed themselves into cramps over the analogy. What they had been doing was using their monopoly to threaten these little mom-

    • Driving traffic doesn't necessarily mean driving revenues equitably to the news sites. The main issue is that Google keeps the main share of ads revenues, and the news sites are starving. Especially if we visit the news sites with an adblocker.

      Also, Google news exists thanks to its creators. So both has a "symbiosis" relationship. Therefore, it is just fair that everyone receives their fair share of revenues.

      • But shouldn't that disagreement be over the terms of the contract whereby Google provides ads to the site? That should be independent of indexing and search listings, because the ads only provide revenue to the site after users have clicked through the link and are on the site.

    • That's a terrible idea, that harms content creators and benefits google. You'd rather pay the middle-man more than the provider of the actual product? What do you think will happen to the quality of the actual product?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What actually happens is that most users go to Google News and scan the headlines and snippets but don't actually click on the links. So Google gets paid via ad revenue, but the sites that produce the actual content get nothing.

      It doesn't seem unfair to want Google to share some of that revenue.

      I find this "you should be grateful for the traffic" argument bogus. Artists have long been saying that they can't pay the rent with "exposure" and don't work for free. Journalists can reasonably expect the same, if

      • People don't seem to understand that if the middleman (Google) gets most of the money, the content quality will suffer. And then the blame will go to the content producers, while the middle man finds some other victim (industry) to leech from. Same with booking.com. If hotels have to pay 30% to those leeches, how do people think the hotels will offset that cost? Marketing mafia all of them.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It also encourages clickbait, since they only get paid if someone clicks. Informative headlines and snippets are no good.

      • What actually happens is that most users go to Google News and scan the headlines and snippets but don't actually click on the links. So Google gets paid via ad revenue, but the sites that produce the actual content get nothing.

        If people are only reading the headlines and snippets then best case they go to the source's site and... read the headlines and snippets. So they generate one page view, whoopee. They also generate only one page view for Google, so there's not enough revenue being generated there to pay them anything.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Slightly bizarre argument, as if the issue is one viewer and not millions that Google gets.

          • The papers are complaining about lost revenue when none is being lost. That many viewers would never go to their site. Meanwhile they get a chance to get clickthroughs from the increased number of viewers reading their headlines. I would be stunned if Google weren't actually sending more traffic to their sites than they would have in its absence, and they aren't even attempting to prove that they aren't.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I don't know if that correct. I see news on feeds that I would previously have gone to various sites to obtain. At the very least I visit news sites less frequently because a lot of news has already appeared in my feeds.

              • I see news on feeds that I would previously have gone to various sites to obtain. At the very least I visit news sites less frequently because a lot of news has already appeared in my feeds.

                Well, I do the opposite. I visit news sites more to read the full story because I see snippets of news, and want to know more. So ultimately you would have to work with studies, surveys, and statistics to know whether Google is already providing a net positive or vice versa. And you'd want to do the same studies for social media.

                Look at Slashdot. This is a site that does exactly what Google is being flamed for. It includes snippets of news stories, doesn't pay sources for them, and profits from the practice

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  I guess the main difference with Slashdot, apart from scale, is that the stories are user submitted.

                  However if Slashdot was much larger then yeah, I can see the argument for a bit of revenue sharing. People come here to comment on the stories, and probably then don't go to the story site to comment.

                  • However if Slashdot was much larger then yeah, I can see the argument for a bit of revenue sharing. People come here to comment on the stories, and probably then don't go to the story site to comment.

                    Why would I give my comments to a site that makes it difficult to read them? If I'm going to take the time and trouble to write them, I want them seen by as many people as possible. These days that usually means Twitter or Reddit. But of course, also Slashdot. If I had to leave them on the source's site, I probably wouldn't bother.

  • So Google is going to negotiate a high rate? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by micheas ( 231635 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @10:42PM (#60976690) Homepage Journal

    If Google negotiates a high enough rate they can probably force Duck Duck Go, Bing, Yandex, and other search engines out of the market.

  • Google should also pay me for linking to my site

  • If Google ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday January 21, 2021 @10:53PM (#60976708)

    ... really wants to flip the French the bird, they should continue to index French news sites and display snippets. But translate them all into English.

    • ... really wants to flip the French the bird, they should continue to index French news sites and display snippets. But translate them all into English.

      Oh, that's a good idea. Replace the various news organizations logos with obscene gestures and pictures of the French getting run over by Germany in World War II.

    • I like the idea of translating them into bad English using Google Translate, but it would be more effective to spin off separate business units incorporated in the relevant countries. For convenience, let's call our French subsidiary Google(France) EURL

      So Google(France) EURL is created and 'buys' a non-exclusive right to serve up Google results in France. It also leases the google.fr DNS name from Alphabet and a bunch of virtual servers to act as forwarders. If there's any money left it could even lease a

  • Interesting news, since Google are currently threatening to block Australia from using google search to avoid paying australian news companies.

  • Market rates (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Todd Knarr ( 15451 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @03:41AM (#60977136) Homepage

    It'll be interesting to see if Google takes the obvious tack on this. Google pays the site the same rate sites pay per-view to advertisers for each view in the listing. And the sites pay Google the same rate sites pay per-click to advertisers for each click through the listing to the site's story. IIRC click-throughs are worth a lot more than views when it comes to ad placement.

  • Sigh (Score:3)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @04:22AM (#60977176) Homepage

    Here's a headsup:

    If you force a search engine to only, or primarily, present your chosen results to me... I don't want to use that search engine.

    Yes, if I use Google, they will present Google results first. That's my choice/tradeoff. But forcing them to present things that I have no interest in, and which I could find in 10 seconds if I wanted to seek them out, is just breaking the search engine as far as I'm concerned.

    I will likely - like paid listings - never use this news showcase junk. If I think that the search engine of my choice wasn't returning the things I want, or returning things that I don't want, then I'll go to another.

    Google won the search wars initially by returning the most relevant of results with the least amount of spam. It's a hard job in the modern age. They were so good at it, it made them one of the largest companies in the world on the back of a pittance of advertising revenue per search.

    And now you want to tell them what should be most relevant on their search engine?

  • OK, so France is forcing Google to index their news sites, and pay for the priviledge. It is likely that other European states will follow suit

    Presumably this law also applies to other content providers, so who else will be demanding payment for indexing their sites? How long will it be before the clickbaiters and other trolls are creating 'news' sites and demanding that Google pay to index them too??

  • Am I correct in my understanding... (Score:3)

    by DulcetTone ( 601692 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @09:06AM (#60977656)

    ... that Google is paying entities to direct traffic to their sites?

    I may have to start charging the supermarket for all this food I've been taking off their hands.

  • Can someone please explain to me how one can possibly know by reading the headline "Google Agrees To Pay French News Sites To Send Them Traffic" whether the "Them" refers to Google or to the "French News Sites" ?

    Editors, EDIT !

  • So now the only news related 'hits' from France will be:

    a) only from the best funded news sites; and
    b) only if Google decides to enter in to a contract.

    If this paradigm were to scale you can expect that only the wealthiest news publishers that meet Google's criteria for 'correct' content and message will get prominence in searches. In that way, Google controls the message. Well played Google! No comment on the shortsightedness of the French government and news media.

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