Google to start paying UK publishers for news

LONDON – Google on Wednesday said it has launched its News Showcase product in the UK, which means the tech giant will now pay for news content in the country for the first time.

The Silicon Valley company has signed an agreement with 120 UK publications, including the Financial Times and Reuters, which will receive license fees to produce news clips that appear in Google News Showcase. Reports suggest that publishers will receive a few million dollars a year from Google.

The functionality will be integrated with the Google News mobile app and Google Discover, a feed hosted by Google on mobile devices containing articles and videos.

When users click on the snippets in the Google News app or on Google Discover, they are redirected to the full article on the publisher’s site.

“Google News Showcase, our new product experience and licensing program for news, will begin rolling out to local, national and independent publishers in the UK,” Ronan Harris, vice president and general manager, said Wednesday from Google UK and Ireland. .

“As part of our license agreements with publishers, we are also launching the ability for readers to access certain paywall content. This feature will give readers the ability to read more content from a publisher than they can. ‘would otherwise have access, while still allowing publishers to encourage readers to become subscribers. “

Around the world, Google has convinced 450 news posts to produce content for Google News Showcase.

The feature was also launched in Australia, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, and Argentina. Google said discussions were underway in several other countries.

Tech giants like Facebook and Google are under increasing pressure to pay media companies for their content.

Last October, Google announced it would pay publishers $ 1 billion for news over the next three years.

However, when the Australian government proposed a new law that would require Google and Facebook to pay news publishers for the right to link to their content in news feeds or search results, Google threatened to remove its widely used search engine from the country.

The bill in Australia is dubbed the News Media Trading Code and specifically targets Google and Facebook. This would force tech giants to negotiate payments with local publishers and broadcasters for content included in search results or news feeds. If they can’t strike a deal, a government-appointed arbitrator will decide the price.

Google has lobbied a lot against the code, calling it “unreasonable” and “unachievable”.

“Coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk if this version of the Code were to become law, it would leave us with no choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia”, Mel Silva, CEO of Google Australia and New Zealand , told an Australian Senate committee last month.

Scott Morrison, Australian Prime Minister, told a press conference “we do not respond to threats”.