Google News Says Goodbye to Spain Thanks to New Law

Google has taken the decision to stop providing its news aggregation service in Spain following the passing of a new law. Legislation imposed by the country means that Google could be fined up to €600,000 for using content from news websites without paying for it.

That is essentially what the law entails – a number of publishers in Spain have complained that Google has been profiting from their content without their permission. They say that Google News is using this content unfairly and that Google should pay for it. The law adheres to this concern.

Google obviously is not very happy – in a blog post by Richard Gingras, Head of Google News, the company says that the service is something that “hundreds of millions of users love and trust” and that “Google News creates real value for these publications”. They say that most sites benefit from their optional presence on the service and that users and publishers will be worse off as a result.

“It’s a service that hundreds of millions of users love and trust, including many here in Spain. It’s free to use and includes everything from the world’s biggest newspapers to small, local publications and bloggers. Publishers can choose whether or not they want their articles to appear in Google News — and the vast majority choose to be included for very good reason. Google News creates real value for these publications by driving people to their websites, which in turn helps generate advertising revenues. “

What do you think, is Google stealing content, or is Google News beneficial to publishers?

Source: The Verge