Google News in Spanish has stopped working due to copyright

This law will be in effect at the beginning of the new year 2015. Google has decided to stop updating Google News in Spanish, and work on this decision will begin starting in the new year 2015. This step comes in light of the Spanish government accusing Google of violating copyrights. The Spanish government has told Google that it must pay sums of money to publishers whose articles appear in news search results.

As for the reason that prompted the government to make such a decision, they were some publishers and the newspaper group AEDE. Google explained in the article published on its official blog that the reason for the closure was due to Google News not making any profits from displaying newspaper articles, and therefore it was illogical for the government to take such a step.

Here is a quote: adly, as a result of a  new Spanish law, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why.

This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable. So it’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain.

Translation of this quote: (Not literally) We are saddened that, as a result of the new Spanish law, we will soon be shutting down Google News in Spain. Let me explain to you why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to request payment from services such as Google News to show any small section of an article to their publishers.

Whether they want it or not. Since Google News itself does not generate any significant profit (we do not display ads on the site), this law is simply not within our possibilities. It is very sad that on December 16, (before the new law comes into effect) we will remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and we will close Google News in Spain.

This is not the first time that Google has faced this type of attack, as previously the German government had done the same thing, forcing Google News to force anyone who wanted to publish its articles to sign a special pledge allowing the company to publish this type of journalistic article. Google justifies this matter by saying that we send valuable visits to users participating in Google News, and this will bring them profit, but we will not pay any fees because we basically do not consider news to be a profit-making project.

#Googlenews #Google News