France Applies Tax Pressure To Google For Republishing News Snippets 350
Qedward writes "France may introduce a law to make Google pay to republish news snippets if it doesn't strike a deal with French news publishers before the end of the year, the office of French President François Hollande said. French publishers want to share in the revenue that Google earns from advertising displayed alongside their news snippets in search results. Readers are often satisfied by reading the headline and summary published by Google News, and don't feel the need to click through to the news site, the publishers say. In this way, Google profits and the content creators don't. The publishers want to be able to charge Google to compensate them for ad revenue losses."
Banned from Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
The French really want to be removed from the internet...
Minitel (Score:5, Funny)
That's o.k. - They still have Minitel.
Re:Minitel (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. It shut down on 30 June 2012 [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Banned from Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite. They want to get paid by force since they haven't tried to earn money via adapting to changes to technology.
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Oh wait, that kills their ad revenue moreso, doesn't it? What they really want is that they want to have their cake AND eat it too? No... that didn't work for the last Frenchy who insisted upon it. I doubt it will work here either.
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The French really want to be removed from the internet...
Its a vast Yahoo conspiracy.
Re:Banned from Google? (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if they've ever heard of "robots.txt"?
Last I heard, Google was honoring it....
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I wonder if they've ever heard of "robots.txt"?
Last I heard, Google was honoring it....
But then they would get zero money and disappear from google search's results. What they want is being indexed by google *and* being payed for it (because google displays there content on google news).
robots.txt doesn't allow this.
Re:Banned from Google? (Score:5, Informative)
Google does let you index block just the News bot without blocking Search; you just have to setup different rules for the "Googlebot" and the "Googlebot-News" useragent. (It's the same bot, but it complies with both rules if they're defined).
Re:Banned from Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they've ever heard of "robots.txt"?
Last I heard, Google was honoring it....
That would work fine if they wanted to be removed from the index. They want to receive Google's indexing service free and they also want Google to pay them for the privilege of giving them free indexing services. I bet if Google dropped them from the indexes for a few weeks, they'd be begging to get back in.
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Google doesn't just index their sites though, they built their own portal and filled it with content from the newspaper's web sites. The papers are arguing that Google News is a destination in itself and often people get enough detail just from that site than to the snippets.
Web search is different because most of the time you don't go to Google just to look at the search results, you go to find sites and then visit them. Of course now Google actually presents a lot of data right on the search page so it is
Re:Banned from Google? (Score:4, Informative)
You can configure robots.txt to block Google News and not Search, Google has two different user-agents just for that.
They're just rent seeking, that's all.
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OK, but they're talking about the revenue that Google gets from displaying ads next to Google News.
Yet, Google doesn't display ads in Google News.
So what are they even talking about?
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The French newspapers know what they're doing. They don't want to be unlisted from Google, that would be a terrible idea. If you're not listed in the largest search engine, no one can find you and you're in trouble. But if they all threaten to unlist together, then it's Google who is in trouble in France. Google is in the business of linking people to content, and it can't do that without any content, so the newspapers (as long as they act together, and especially if the government backs them) have a footho
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I dunno.
I don't personally see this jumpstarting a successful company whose sole benefit starting out is, that they index French news sites and pay the sites for the priv.
I suppose they could gr
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You seem to think the only sources of French news are in France. How about CNN or BBC? I'm sure they cover events and happenings in France.
Unfortunately, in some respects, when it comes to the Internet there is no such thing as a monopoly or even a cartel. France can't block news about France no matter how hard they try.
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Google is not the internet you moron
If you make a piece of information available through the Internet, and you have opted out of allowing it to be indexed in the search engines that index resources available through the Internet, have you really made the piece of information available?
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But that's not the case. Google honours such requests.
They want to force Google to index them *and* pay them. (Comments from Eric Schmidt that Google might have to stop indexing the sites if such a law was passed, was decried as a "threat")
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... A threat? That's silly, if they wanted to threaten them, they say "French news sites are blocked, and if they want back in, they need to bay *us*".
Re:Banned from Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
... Erm, yes! What do you think URL's are!?
Just because I'm not in the Phone book doesn't mean people can't call me.
If your business revolved around people calling you it means your business would probably fail.
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You're right: fewer businesses are bothering with phone books, and fewer consumers use them (mainly just elderly people). Why is that?
Because everyone uses Google to find stuff now.
If I want to find a local pizzeria, I get on Google Maps and type in "pizza" and find everything near me. Then I can look at the reviews for them too. Why would I need a phone book?
However, if the pizzerias all decided to force Google to not list them, I wouldn't find them, and they'd no longer get any new business.
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What instead of Google? (Score:3)
Re:Banned from Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
Search engines are not the internet. Google is not the only search engine.
Indeed, but who says they won't try to strongarm the other major search providers the same way? It's the same logic chain : "hey, you're making money off of showing people some of our content, we want a piece!" Want to take wagers on how many search providers will agree to that? They're already providing these paranoid schmucks with a valuable service by indexing their content and making it available to inquiring netizens across the globe, why would they then agree to pay to provide this service?
The French content providers could simply request that Google and other search providers only show the headline with no summary info, that would seem to work. Trouble is, if you don't show the end user enough to confirm that your article has the info they're looking for, they'll just move on to the next item in the search results. I guess that's simply the consequences of greed.
These guys had better be confident in the fidelity and longevity of their already subscribed user base, otherwise they're shooting themselves in the foot with this move.
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Well, I suppose Google could just turn off google.fr or whatever it is....and see how they like that.
Or, I guess maybe they could just blacklist all the complaining news agencies and not index their sites at all and see how the French news agencies and leaders liked that...?
How about France try to invent the next Google or Google-like successful internet company, and then they can tax the living hell out of that all to their hearts delight, eh?
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Re:Banned from Google? (Score:4, Informative)
I see, you didn't ever visit Google News too.
I mean, yeah, right:
Review: 'Assassin's Creed III' a powerful sequelUSA TODAY - 49 minutes ago
A scene from 'Assassin's Creed III.' (Photo: Ubisoft). 12:40PM EDT October 30. 2012 - These poachers picked the wrong place to hunt.
Yup, got all I've needed from Google. Ok, let's pick another one:
Syrian air force on offensive after failed truceReuters - 1 hour ago
1 of 5. Smoke rises from what activists say was a missile fired by a Syrian Air Force fighter jet loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at Erbeen, near Damascus October 29, 2012.
Got all I need! I know exactly where the strikes were - in Syria! No need to know about what city, what scale, what consequences, Google told me everything.
Or this one:
Celtics' Doc Rivers won't reveal starting power forwardUSA TODAY - 34 minutes ago
Comments. Boston Celtics coach Doc River has several candidates to open at power forward Tuesday against the Miami Heat. Jared Sullinger 10-30-12.
Who cares who are those candidates? Google told me everything - they've got canditates and there's several of them! No need to find out who are they at all.
Next one:
Hurricane Sandy: What's Climate Change got to do With It?ABC News - 17 minutes ago
This photo provided by 6abc Action News shows the Inlet section of Atlantic City, N.J., as Hurricane Sandy makes it approach, Monday Oct. 29, 2012.
See, they've posted the answer to the headline's question right there in the summary! Nope, not visiting that article, no need to.
TL;DR: you can't be arsed to visit the site you're bashing. Well, I can't blame you, facts kinda get in the way of a good bashing.
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The parent that you are trying to belittle is correct. Google will just de-list the news sites. Have they not already learned that lesson, that you can't have it both ways? Ask some Belgian news publishers. They are just not in a position to play "hard ball" with Google.
The reason the news sites don't like summaries is, it gives people a chance to decide if they are interested in reading the article before they click. It saves us from wasting our time. So... my heart just pumps purple piss for them.
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Their content helps make Google rich. They're fine with that but want their cut.
Or you can spin it "Google provides a free service of directing traffic to their site."
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The product provider wants to be paid for its product.
AND they want to get Google's service for free. Not exactly high moral ground. If you don't like Google's service, then by all means, opt out with robots.txt. But complaining that Google is 'mooching' your product while still demanding that Google give you a service YOU DON'T PAY FOR, is pretty ballsy.
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Given how Google handled the French-language press in Belgium, and that they've already said they'd stop indexing French news sites if required to pay, I think it's fairly obvious that they will make a stand.
Indeed, the current major complaint from the French government is that saying they'll de-index rather than pay is "threaten[ing] a democratically elected government."
If it's really just snippets (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's really just snippets of a larger value proposition that people are allegedly willing to pay for, then I think this is better known elsewhere in the world as "free advertising".
Sorry France. Love your healthcare system, but this is just silly.
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Hey...they gotta pay for that healthcare system somehow.
At some point, you run out of someone else's money. At the point...locally they're getting squeezed badly, so I'm guessing steps like this are a testing ground to grab more money for the country in general, to help pay for it.
ie: Testing for a new source of "someone else's" money...
Here's a hint (Score:5, Insightful)
If people can get all they want out of a headline and a paragraph, maybe you should focus on making the article have more *content* and less fluff.
Re:Here's a hint (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, indeed. Will these newspapers now put their publications behind darkened glass paper dispensers, so that no one will just look at the headline and decide no to buy it?
"We want free advertising of our product, but don't want you to make any money doing it for us!" Google should consider charging them for advertising they're giving them.
Re:Here's a hint (Score:5, Insightful)
"Google should consider charging them for advertising they're giving them"
I like this solution. Google should announce that they will be billing back any fees levied in France against the newspapers they index, plus a bit for administrative overhead. Any paper that doesn't like it can be banned from Google's index.
That's the Wall Street Journal solution (Score:2)
Will these newspapers now put their publications behind darkened glass paper dispensers
The paper version of the Wall Street Journal has been doing this for decades: They only show headlines and article summaries above the fold, counting on you to want to buy the paper to read more.
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If the headline says "Jacko is dead" that's enough information for me to start a real conversation with colleagues, friends and the wife. Being a gobby know-it-all is not good when you want a proper discussion.
If it's a subject with a bit more meaning, I'll try the BBC first, Sky News second, ITN, C4 - all news providers I've already paid for. Maybe The Telegraph, The Sun, The Daily Fail, if the subject interests me. The chances are it's on Twitter, G+ and the ilk too.
Local news is
I am one of those news surfing guy (Score:3)
As such the newspaper are right. I read google summary and the newspaper, des
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Don't underestimate the French, they have a record of mixing up stubborness and arrogancy.
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If Google stops indexing all French news sources, it strikes me that any attempt to go after it after that must certainly be a violation of international trade laws.
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There are still sizable Francophone populations in the Americas, Africa, East Asia and Oceania.
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that I don't think Google's news aggregation service has anything to do with failing readership. I think the claim that people are just reading headlines in Google News and getting everything they need is unevidenced post hoc explanation for falling readership. The problem was beginning to rear its head long before Google reached the position it's at it. I suspect it has more to do with a lack of interest in content, and I would wager that if Google were to simpl
Google.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Should just drop their sites from their search results,
But what about Mutual Benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wouldn't know the majority of news sites if it weren't for Google's aggregation. So I wouldn't click their sites at all. This seems like they're wanting compensation for something that already compensates them by listing them and making their site more visible.
Actually the payment should flow both ways. If the French (and Belgian, and German) Publishers want to free-ride google and charge google for the pleasure, then I don't really see why google shouldn't charge them for the privilege. Could get to be quite fun.
Re:But what about Mutual Benefits (Score:4, Insightful)
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most people who read the article have never even heard of the paper
Readers have heard of their own city's local paper. Perhaps the big papers are trying to get readers to ask their local paper to syndicate national stories from one of the big papers, just as a lot of U.S. papers syndicate national stories from Associated Press or Reuters. It's the same reason that cable TV channels run ads to "call your cable operator" about adding the company's new sister channel.
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I've noticed a lot of news sites that redirects traffic based on the referer and you end up on the front page if you followed a link from google news. Thing is, I actually dislike that and generally close the site, which is the opposite of what usually happen when I go to read an article and end up crawling their site.
Don't see the argument really (Score:5, Insightful)
If a site doesn't want Google to make money off of their content headlines... then they can easily opt out of having Google pick up their data and index it.
But NO... they WANT the exposure and get a cut too.... if the law is passed, cut them off. Simple
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This would be pretty stupid.
The internet was and is opt-in: one opts in by putting up a public website and opening web server port to the internet. Afterwards, everyone - including you, search bots, mash up services etc. - can read it and do everything the copyright laws allow them to.
Internet is meant to be crosslinked and accesible by default. If you wish to make your site only for your limited circle - you're welcome to use access restrictions. But most sites are meant to be read and linked to.
Avoiding the real question (Score:3)
I'm certainly from this group.
However this view avoids the real question: How is online content going to be paid for?
Newspapers already cannot make enough money off of online advertising to pay for the creation of their content.
I don't see internet users lining up for (a) micropayments or (b) some kind of universal subscription, and they're definitely not thinking about (c) maintain subscriptions to each of the 50 newspapers and magazines who post articles they want to read.
Seriously, why can't I get a Slashdot or Google subscription for $50 a year to read all these articles without ads and with the ability to retrieve them infinitely?
Your average newspaper's website would have to improve in navigability and reliability too.
There's a lot more to this question than one lawsuit can answer.
Re:Avoiding the real question (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if the average newspaper contained 'content' which wasn't freely available on the web or had more intellectual content than 'Temporary Star X has bought a new dress', people might be willing to pay for them.
That's a very good point: empty "content" (Score:3)
That's a really excellent point. People have been complaining for decades or centuries that the news is either contentless, or yellow journalism, or salacious.
There should be a news source for people who really don't care about Honey Boo-Boo. Usually, that's a high-quality newspaper like the Wall Street Journal or New York Times.
I wouldn't mind if we lost all the "news" that was contentless, yellow or salacious (gossip). The perception is that many more people "want" that news than not.
It could be that as n
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Yeah, great, a google wall to extract $50 a year from me. Soon, no other search engine but google will be allowed to index via their robots.txt.
And if you don't think that's possible, Google made their formerly free froogle/Google Shopping indexing service utterly worthless (to me) by making merchants to pay to be included in the first place.
I l
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It's not as if we have a shortage of online content. The supply has actually increased tremendously and thus the effective market price of any individual piece has gone down. That sucks for the content producers, because their business is less profitable than it used to be, but no one said they were entitled to a certain level of profit. If they want to make more money, it's up to them to figure out how, preferably by innovating and contributing something new to society rather than rent-seeking.
robots.txt (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe newspapers who don't want to get republished by Google should learn about "robots.txt"? Granted, it's more than a decade old, but it still works.
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The newspapers WANT to be republished . . . AND they want to be paid for it. It's like wanting to be a member of a club, and insisting that the club pay you to be a member.
The whole thing is just about money. Google has it. The French newspapers don't. So the French government is looking for a way to channel money from Google to their newspapers.
I have an idea that would increase the readership of French newspapers . . . they could publish in English.
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It's like wanting to be a member of a club, and insisting that the club pay you to be a member.
Aha! That's how they got the idea, they found inspiration in the pro-athlete world.
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But this law won't accomplish that either. If this becomes law, Google will simply not republish any newspaper that doesn't agree on its own accord to allow Google to do so without charge.
Re:robots.txt (Score:5, Insightful)
No. They're not.
Is Google getting billions in taxpayer subsidies like oil companies? No. Is Google getting billions in taxpayer bailouts after blowing their assets on get rich schemes? No. Is Google a monopoly ripping off their customers? No.
Do you have an actual point here? No.
Re:robots.txt (Score:4)
LOL (Score:3)
It's a Lose/Lose situation, Google has less news, these french sites get significantly less traffic.
Sure they might be complaining they don't get much, but i can guaran-fucking-tee you they'll get less without Google.
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France realizes it. Google flat out told them if the law passes they will delist the French news organizations.
France's response? "You don't threaten a democratically elected government."
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"You don't threaten a democratically elected government."
Quite right. They are threatening the french newspaper corporations, not the government. Maybe some of these companies are state-owned. Tough shit.
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Indeed, there are more details here [rivierareview.com] about it. Apparently Google passes on 4 billion click-throughs per month... methinks traffic would drop for those papers quite significantly if they got de-indexed. Under the new law, if any of those click-throughs fail to compensate the owner then there is up to €300,000 fine for each.
Phillip.
"content creators"??? (Score:3)
Legitimate news reports don't "create" anything. You can't "create" facts... you can only observe them and record them. You can't really own a fact either.
Or are they suggesting that french news reporters somehow also manufacture the facts?
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What is being monetized when publishing news is reputation. Anybody can report "facts" but will you trust them?
Hollande's strategy: sneaky taxes. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Francois Hollande's government has been pulling new creative taxes out of their asses for a little while now.
+5, Informative, thank you. This story sounded like a sneaky populist tax all along.
Another one is a new tax on beer.
Wow, that one ought to rile Slashdot folks . . .
Now, having just returned from a vacation in France, and meeting some really nice folks there, I understand de Gaulle's 246 kinds of cheese comment. But why does the stinkiest cheese always seem to end up as President?
This, but you explained it poorly (Score:3)
The eventual equilibrium saddle for this, after everyone is done punching and counterpunching, is:
(1) The new law destroys the fair use provisions of France Intellectual and Property Code, Art. L. 122-5(3)(a)
(2) Content providers may request payment for content on what was previously "fair use"
(3) Google offers free listing to those who allow indexing of content (a cross-licensing agreement)
(4) Google considers indexing any content requiring payment to be advertising, and charges for it
(5) Net zero money ac
I thought the global news source was google (Score:2)
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The right to be stupid (Score:2)
I have to side with the French newspapers on this one. They own the copyrights to the material they write, and should be able to (try to) charge for others, including Google, to use that.
As many people have pointed out, it's hard to see how this will work to the newspapers' advantage. They are saying "no" to free advertising. But, if they want to assert their rights and cling to an obsolete 20th-century business model, good luck to 'em. AFAIK the law is on their side.
Now if I were a shareholder in French me
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Re:The right to be stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
They own the copyrights to the material they write, and should be able to (try to) charge for others, including Google, to use that.
No, they should be able to stop Google from using it if they don't like the terms. If only there was some easy way to politely tell Google not to index certain pages [google.com]. Then the french newspapers could do that, if they don't want certain readers to read what they have freely put on the web.
New paradigm for French news headlines (Score:2)
If Google won't play ball, expect French news headlines and first sentences to start sounding generic:
Lawmakers vote today
Today's traffic
Tomorrow's weather
Defendant hears decision from judge
The real "news" will be 2 or 3 sentence down.
Ads? (Score:3)
What ads? I don't get any ads with my Google News headline pages.
I guess if France wants their percentage of zero .....
Share what ad revenue? (Score:2)
First, there are no ads on Google news. Second, search results? What? People doing a search are most likely going to follow one of the links on the results page. I haven't seen anyone do a search and just browse the results listing and be satisfied.
Et tu, Slashdot? (Score:2)
Google get smoney (Score:2)
from sone else to redirct peopel to yuor site.
I ca'n theklp but notice the argument has gine from:
"Google shows the article"
to
"Google shows a snippet and that prevent people from going to the site."
Both of which is poppy cock.
random grabbed snippet:
"By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter. TUESDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Racial disparities in breast cancer survival persist, even after factors such as education, neighborhood and socioeconomic status are accounted for, new research finds."
Why wouldn't I cli
For those that remember print newspapers (Score:3)
How is this much different from reading the headline through the glass at a paper vending machine? The newspapers ought to be paying Google for the traffic.
Monopoly muscles (Score:3, Interesting)
And then, it becomes much more interesting as Europe is constantly probing many companies for such evil monopolistic behaviors. Europe could force google to index these newspapers, and France has much more legislative influence over Europe than Belgium which attempted the same kind of tax, several years ago.
Re:Monopoly muscles (Score:4, Insightful)
Suing a shopping mall (Score:3)
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Slashdot should send France a bill for all users from France accessing Slashdot. Google could paywall France as well. Google and Slashdot could use the money to pay the French newspapers' bills.
The folks in France could use their powers of democracy to prevent this from escalating, but I doubt that they will. This is just a classic Mafia-style shakedown. Google has money, and French newspapers want a "taste" or a "piece of the action."
Google will not let France get away with this, though. Otherwise,
Re:The usual black and white responses (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds good. And the newspapers can share some of the profit they make from Google pointing people toward their stories, then everyone wins.
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If French publishers are going to get a cut, everyone else will start demanding a piece too. How do you divide up the revenue from the ads shown on the google news site?
I just took a look and I see headline + snippets from stories in NYT, CNET, HuffPo, Reuters, CSM, Haaretz, and The Guardian to name a few, and headlines from half a dozen more.
Who gets the revenue from my viewing a few ads on the page?
The black and white solution seems like the most workable one. France can let google use the snippets (not
Middle way is already available (Score:3)
There is already a middle way available. Any newspaper can tell Google: "We've blocked you from indexing us via our robots.txt file. Share some of your profits with us, we will unblock you and everyone wins." Google wants to win, so it would voluntarily accept any 'everyone-wins' proposal.
Of course, this might not be a situation where everyone wins, but one where Google loses. (Asserting that everyone wins does not make it so,) The people at Google are smart enough to evaluate this for themselves.
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