Google generated $ 4.7 billion worth of news sites in 2018, which is close to revenue for the entire industry | Technology

Last year, Google generated $ 4.7 billion in advertising from news content, almost as much as revenue from the entire online news industry.

According to a study published Monday by the News Media Alliance, between 16% and 40% of Google's search results are news content. Google's revenue generated by the distribution of news content is only $ 400 million less than the $ 5.1 billion generated by the US newspaper industry as a whole thanks to digital advertising from last year.

The industry has warned that the numbers may actually be conservative, as the report does not attempt to include the value of users' personal data each time they use the search service to click on a story.

The report highlights the media's increasingly uncomfortable dependence on high-tech distribution, and exacerbates the long-standing sorrow that companies like Google, Facebook and Apple are taking advantage of disproportionately that agreement.

"News publishers must continue to invest in quality journalism, which they can not do if platforms meet their expectations without paying," said David Chavern, president of the alliance, in a statement. a statement. "The information wants to be free, but the journalists must be paid."

The distorted dominance of major technologies by large-scale technologies, effectively controlling the prices and distribution of information production on almost all publications behind a paying wall, has long thwarted the information sector.

In 2009, Google News had about 24 million unique visitors per month in the US, compared with 50 million for CNN and the New York Times. In May 2018, Google had about 150 million unique visitors per month in the United States, nearly double those of CNN and the New York Times.

Chavern will present the media's arguments for a more equitable distribution of revenues to a congressional antitrust subcommittee, which will look at the relationship between big tech companies and the media.

The alliance hopes that the outcome will be the adoption of the Competition and Preservation Act, a bill that would give news publishers a four-year antitrust exemption allowing them to collectively bargain with platform owners in Canada. line on revenue sharing.

The alliance says the new study primarily sets the public demand for information.

"The news content certainly drives a lot of user behavior," Chavern told The Guardian. "In any case, the value we attributed to Google is conservative, and I'm sure if you monitor Google, the number would seem conservative."

Chavern says Google and Facebook could be good partners for the information sector – if they wanted to.

According to the report, since January 2017, traffic generated by Google search to news publishers' websites has increased by more than 25%, reaching approximately 1.6 billion visits per week in January 2018.

Chavern describes Google and Facebook as "wonderful distribution systems" that do not respect their part of the content creation – content distribution contract. In fact, according to the report, with consumers switching to Google for news consumption, information is increasingly important for Google to keep consumers in its digital realm.

However, this growing dependence does not translate into an increase in publisher revenues. Chavern said, "They just need to work with us to build a sustainable digital future for the news and they are not ready to do it yet."

The Alliance points out that digital platforms are used to paying for content – music, for example – and argues that news should not be different. But when digital platforms were approached, Chavern said, "They say a lot of beautiful things but steadfastly refuse to pay or improve the economic agreement on the news."

It is possible that this may change. Increased political and regulatory pressures on major technologies, including calls for Facebook's fragmentation and widespread warning about the role of the proliferation of false information and its role in distorting the democratic process, has forced the major technologies to put on the defensive.

In recent weeks, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, has organized a media excuse for not doing enough to combat electoral interference, hate speech and the spread of misinformation – and for argue that regulators should not dismantle Facebook. .