Google News will allow free access to paywalled articles from news sites

As part of its $ 1 billion investment in partnerships with news publishers, Google will begin paying for some paid content for its News Showcase program. News Showcase, a new addition to Google News launched in October, features panels of articles curated by publishers – but it’s not yet available in the United States.

News Showcase “will begin offering people access to paywall-protected content in partnership with select news publishers,” a Google blog post said. Google will pay partners for limited access to content subject to a paywall. To access this content, users will still need to register with individual publishers.

Users in the United States shouldn’t be too excited about the free items just yet. Google lists publisher partnerships in several countries, but the United States is not currently on the list. News Showcase launched in October in Brazil and Germany. Publications in other countries, including Argentina, Canada, France, the UK and Australia, have since signed on. “Conversations are underway in a number of other countries,” says Google.

Image: Google

Google also announced a new type of story panel, allowing individual editors to view curated lists of the day’s important articles. These selections will appear in the user’s For You feeds, as well as in a new dedicated area in the Newsstand on Google News.

News Showcase was first launched for the Google News app on Android and is now available on iOS. Google says it will be available soon on news.google.com and Google Discover.