Google has taken on a battle with California lawmakers and news publishers over content compensation.
The Mountain View internet search and digital advertising giant is fighting a state bill that would require the company and others to pay news publishers for the content they link to on their platforms. Stop displaying links to news articles. .
Google said in a blog post Friday that the move was a “short-term test with a small number of users to gauge the law’s impact on our product experience.”
This means that if you search for this article on Google in the near future, it may no longer appear in the results.
Google wouldn’t say Friday whether all news organizations in California would be affected and declined to answer other questions, including when the links would be removed. As of Friday afternoon, links to publications such as the Mercury News and the Sacramento Bee were still appearing in search results.
The guild, which represents journalists from news outlets across California, including the Mercury News and the East Bay Times, condemned the tactic.
“California lawmakers and Governor Gavin Newsom must unite against Google’s undemocratic threat to censor the work of California journalists by cutting off access to news in the middle of an election year.” “No,” guild representatives said in a statement.
Antitrust campaigners agreed.
“They used their power to retaliate, harass, and quash a democratic process intended to secure the future of essential democratic institutions,” said the Open Market Institute, an antitrust think tank. said Courtney Radosh, director of the Center for Journalism and Freedom. . “There’s a lot of value that’s created by news that doesn’t come back.”
The bipartisan California Journalism Protection Act (AB 886) aims to shore up traditional news organizations, which have struggled even as their content has helped attract users to digital advertising giants’ platforms. . The bill passed the state Assembly but stalled in the California Senate in July after intense lobbying from big technology companies. (Bay Area News Group is part of the California News Publishers Association, which is sponsoring the bill.)
Google and Facebook’s parent company Meta are fighting similar efforts around the world.
“As other countries have shared when considering similar proposals, the uncapped financial exposure created by (the law) is unfeasible and would create a level of business that is unacceptable to any company in its current form. Google said: In a blog post.
Under threat of similar legislation in Canada, Google agreed in November to pay news organizations $73.5 million a year for their content. Australia has become the first country to pass a law requiring big technology companies to pay news companies for their content.
The bill’s sponsor, Oakland Democratic Rep. Buffy Wicks, said Friday that the bill is about “fundamental fairness” and “making sure platforms pay for the content they reuse.” Riverside Republican Rep. Bill Esseri is a co-author.
In November, researchers from Columbia University and the University of Houston published a paper estimating that annual advertising revenue from Google searches is well over $50 billion, and revenue related to news media search results is $21 billion annually. announced.
Wicks said he is committed to continuing negotiations with Google “to ensure a bright future for California journalists and to ensure that the torch of democracy continues to burn.”
