In response to new law, Google will limit news results in France
posted Friday Sep 27, 2019 by Scott Ertz
Google can be a difficult company to predict. This is because, while the company ardently sticky to its values, those values can be near impossible to nail down at any given moment. In 2010, Googled ended operations in China over mandated search result censorship, taking moral exception to the requirement to censor human rights topics. Last year, however, they began work on a censored search product specifically for China. They have since canceled the project, but only because of employee and public backlash.
One area on which they have never wavered, however, is being charged for content. The process has been affectionately known as the Google Tax, where Google is specifically targeted with legislation that harms its business model. The European Union has been the biggest offender of the Google Tax with various laws passed targeting the company. Google's response to these laws has varied, but it has often been understandably harsh.
The most famous instance of Google's retaliation is in regards to Spain and Google News. The country passed a law requiring news aggregators to pay the data sources for the data they collect. In response, Google shut down Google News in Spain. This week, the situation has raised itself once again, but the response seems to be a little bit different.
France has passed a law similar to that of Spain, but Google has not yet shut down its service. Instead, the company has found a way to both punish France and refuse to pay for the data. They have announced that they will only show headlines of articles on France unless the publisher has specifically given Google permission to show a summary. This will be a change in policy from how it works today in France and other countries, where they show the article summary by default.