A Google ‘test’ will omit EU publishers from news links

[Pelican Press 0]

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‘test’ will omit EU publishers from news links

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is conducting a “test” that will omit results from EU-based news publishers. The company says the time-limited trial will only affect a small portion of users in nine EU countries and will help “assess how results from EU news publishers impact the search experience for our users and traffic to publishers.” But given the fragile state of the news media — and the company’s history of

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to pull its services in the face of news-related regulations — it’s tempting to view it as the equivalent of a mob boss conducting a “little test” to see how the corner laundromat fares without its protection.

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the experiment (

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The Verge) as a “small, time-limited test” to omit EU results from search,

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News and the personalized Discover feed. It will only affect one percent of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. Those users will still see results from other websites, including non-EU news publications.

The company says news results will reappear as usual once the test concludes. (It didn’t list a specific timeframe.)

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stresses that the experiment won’t impact the publisher payments it makes under the ********* Copyright Directive (EUCD), under which the company has inked deals with over 4,000 EU publishers.

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does have a history of using the potential withdrawal of its visibility as a negotiating stick in similar situations. In some cases, the tactic has helped it draw concessions.

Last year,

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pulled its news links from Canada in response to Bill C-18 (the Online News Act), which required tech companies to negotiate compensation with online publishers for linked content. After months of negotiations,

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said Canada had addressed its concerns and given it a path to an exemption. Canada said it granted one to

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last month, with the company

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to pay $100 million annually to news organizations.

In April of this year,

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briefly removed links to California news outlets in response to the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), which would require

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to pay news publishers in exchange for continuing to link to their websites. Although the bill’s fate is still up in the air,

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struck a deal with state lawmakers this summer, committing tens of millions of dollars to a fund supporting local news.

In 2021, the company

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in response to a then-proposed law requiring tech companies to share royalties with news publishers. The nation’s then-Prime Minister stood firm. “Let me be clear. Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia,” Scott Morrison said. After the bill was passed and enacted,

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deals with *********** media companies to license content.

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says it hopes the data analysis tools it provides publishers will help them use the EU test to “understand traffic patterns.”

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#

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#test #omit #publishers #news #links

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