Google reports the results of an experiment that removed news from 1% of users search results for 2.5 months in eight European markets. The results show that it is inherently worthless for Google’s advertising business.
The search giant has tested it as European copyright law requires news publishers to pay for reusing snippets of content. But how much is the news worth it? Google claims that publishers “very overestimate” the value of journalism towards their business. According to the test report, actual values were “all or country, and could not be statistically distinguished from zero.”
Google hopes to use this result as leverage in payment negotiations with European publishers. However, the tech giant has been walking the tricky line as it has faced major anti-trust fines in France in recent years in relation to news content. In particular, more than $5 billion has been fined, particularly for its approach to copyright negotiations with publishers.
German competition authorities have declared scrutiny of elements of Google’s actions over the News and were forced to make changes to the company. Therefore, any move by Google to undermine the effectiveness of EU copyright law by asserting the news can make it land in more regulated warm waters.
In fact, the company initially included users in France in its news ablation tests, but waived this part of the experiment after a French court warned that it would be fined to break an earlier agreement with the Antimonopoly Act. In particular, Google did not run any tests in Germany.
*Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain
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