GOOGLE TO PAY PUBLISHERS $1 BILLION FOR NEWS CONTENT
Google has recently announced plans to pay $1 billion to publishers globally for their content over the next three years, a move that could help it win over a powerful group amid heightened regulatory scrutiny worldwide.
The new program called Google News Showcase will start paying select news publishers to create, curate and display high-quality content on its news app in a concession to the industry which has accused the search engine and other tech giants of unfairly using content for years. It will help participating publishers monetize their content through an enhanced storytelling experience that lets people go deeper into more complex stories, stay informed and be exposed to a world of different issues and interests.
The Google News Showcase product which will launch first in Brazil and Germany, will display branded story panels curated by partner publishers, allowing them to highlight their content using timelines, bullets and related news articles. Panels will also link directly to the news publisher’s website, Google said. Initially, these will appear on Android devices and eventually also on Google News on iOS.
The product will be rolled out in Belgium, India, the Netherlands and other countries with about 200 publishers in Argentina, Australia, Britain, Brazil, Canada and Germany having already signed up to the product.
Earlier, Google has long tussled with publishers over how it displays their content, with media companies arguing the search giant should pay them for the privilege. The News Media Alliance, a consortium of US publishers, said in a 2019 study that Google made $4.7 billion off the news industry the previous year, a figure Google has disputed.
