Google's Other Bad Idea: Offering 50 Million Euros To French Newspapers [Updated]
from the is-that-really-wise? dept
Earlier this week we wrote about a strange move by Google: apparently agreeing to pay the French telecoms company Orange extra to deliver its traffic -- thus abandoning the principle of net neutrality it has championed for so long. And now here's another dubious decision: allegedly offering to pay French publishers 50 million Euros in order to settle the dispute over the display of news snippets in its search results:
According to the report, French publishers turned down the €50 million (USD $66.6 million) offer and demanded a figure of €70 to €100 million instead. They also objected to the way Google proposed to disburse the money. The company reportedly offered to spend a third of the €50 million in the form of direct ad purchases while using the rest for commercial advertising partnerships between Google and the publishers. The publishers reportedly complained that too much of the proposed money was contingent on sales figures.
This suggests that Google is trying to frame these payments as more of a partnership with the newspapers than an acquiescence to their demands. That's no surprise, because if it is seen to be paying a license to display copyright material in this case, the pressure to do the same elsewhere will inevitably increase. In fact, it has already adopted this "partnership" explanation for the deal it cut with Belgian publishers last month:
We have reached an agreement that ends all litigation and represents great news for both us and the newspapers. We continue to believe that our services respect newspaper copyrights and it is important to note that we are not paying the Belgian publishers or authors to include their content in our services. From now on, Google and Belgian French-language publishers will partner on a broad range of business initiatives
It remains to be seen whether publishers in France and around the world will be happy to "partner" in this way, or whether some will hold out for a formal recognition by Google that it is paying them for a license to display snippets from their publications. Let's hope not: it would be a truly awful precedent that would undermine not only Google's business model, but much of the Web as we know it.
Update: Right on cue, Eric Schmidt has just unveiled -- you guessed it -- a "partnership" with French publishers:
Today I announced with President Hollande of France two new initiatives to help stimulate innovation and increase revenues for French publishers. First, Google has agreed to create a €60 million Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to help support transformative digital publishing initiatives for French readers. Second, Google will deepen our partnership with French publishers to help increase their online revenues using our advertising technology.
So the price seems to have gone up slightly, from €50 million, to €60 million, plus unspecified amounts to "help increase" publishers' advertising revenue. But no mention of the dreaded "licensing" word in there, so maybe the French publishers blinked, and Google won this time. But expect the issue to come up again in other countries -- Germany, for example -- where Google might not be so lucky.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: france, newspapers, paying to link, payments, search engines
Companies: google
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20130123/11101721766/google-decides-smartp hone-market-share-is-more-important-than-net-neutrality.shtml
Beginning to look like it's time to shut down everything Google in all of France, make sure the public knows why it's happening, and wait for the public outrage to be aimed at the ISPs and the newspapers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wait.
*Actually reads Article*
Shit.
/sarcmarc
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Wait.
*Actually reads Article*
Actually the two recent Techdirt negative articles about Google weren't written by Mike. This one and the previous one were written by Glyn Moody.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Surrendering from a position of dominance
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google: Okay, fine, cut us off.
Typical French arrogance: "American fool!! Now you must pay 12,125,000,000 francs if you want to continue operating in our country!" (despite French users clamoring for the French government to STFU).
Google: Okay, fine, cut us off.
Typical French arrogance: "Running Amurikin pig-dog, you must now pay only a billion francs, because we're getting desperate!"
Google: Okay. (Google shows up at the office with a bag of french francs)
Typical French arrogance: "Oh, nononononono...we said $50 million, not this worthless pittance, you uncultured idiot!"
Google:....???
What WILL they do??
They SHOULD tell them to stuff it!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]