Strict New “Copyright Law” Forces End Of Google News In Spain
Google has decided to shut down Google News in Spain. This drastic step will occur next week and is the result of a recently passed Spanish law that would have compelled Google to pay licensing revenues to Spanish publishers if their content appeared in Google News — even headlines. Some…
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Oh No They Didn’t: European Parliament Calls For Break Up Of Google
Today many Americans are busy preparing Thanksgiving meals or getting ready to travel to the homes of friends and family to celebrate the holiday. But Google certainly won’t be giving thanks for the European Parliament’s vote in favor of a resolution to “unbundle”…
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German Legislator Calling For Google Breakup Has Serious Conflict Of Interest
The German member of the European Parliament behind the call to break up Google, Andreas Schwab, has a conflict of interest. According to the NY Times, he has ties to and earns money from a German law firm that represents anti-Google publishing interests in Germany. German publishers lobbied for…
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Google Settles UK “Defamation” Suit, Agreeing To Remove Malicious Links
Google has long maintained it’s not responsible for third party content in its index. And that’s the law in the US. However increasingly in Europe authorities and individuals are seeking to make Google legally responsible for the content in its search results. The latest example comes…
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Europeans Have Authority To Seek Google Break Up Though Unlikely To Do So
Break Google up. That’s the thrust of a “non-binding” resolution the European Parliament is expected to adopt at some point in the near future, according to a report on Friday from Reuters. The recommendation is likely to be to separate Google’s search engine from the rest…
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Sweden The Latest To Consider Google “Link Tax” For Newspapers
A member of the Swedish parliament, Niclas Malmberg, wants Google to help fund Swedish news publications along the lines of the French model established last year. Threatened with a “link tax,” Google agreed “to create a €60 million Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to help…
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German Publisher Axel Springer: Loss Of Snippets Caused 80 Percent Traffic Drop
Axel Springer, Germany’s largest publisher and the owner of Europe’s largest newspaper, has said it wants back in to snippets. According to Reuters the German publishing giant revealed that traffic to its four largest online properties from Google search results “had fallen by 40…
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Following Germany’s Lead Spain Passes Misguided “Google Tax” Anti-Piracy Law
Given the saga of Germany’s ill-conceived and poorly implemented “ancillary copyright law” one would have thought that another European government wouldn’t immediately duplicate the mistake. But that’s exactly what’s happened in Spain. Spanish…
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German Publishers To Google: We Want Our Snippets Back
German publishers want their snippets and thumbnails back. A consortium of roughly 200 companies, together known as “VG Media,” have said that the loss of traffic from the disappearance of these elements could cause some of their members “to go bankrupt.” The publishers have been…
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Media Companies Republishing Google Right-To-Be-Forgotten Links
Google is notifying publishers when it de-indexes their links under the controversial “Right to Be Forgotten” (RTBF). What this does is often trigger republication of a version of the story by the media outlet or a page that indicates what URLs are being removed from the search index….
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Google’s Eric Schmidt In Berlin: “Really, Our Biggest Search Competitor Is Amazon”
The attitudes of European policy makers toward Google seem to have hardened of late. On various regulatory fronts, Google faces vocal critics and well-organized opposition. Google’s Eric Schmidt gave a speech earlier today in Berlin seeking to change some of those hardened hearts and minds….
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Facebook & YouTube Are Top Sites With Content Removed From Google Under “Right To Be Forgotten”
Google is now sharing details about Right To Be Forgotten removals in a new section of its pre-existing Google Transparency Report area. The latest numbers show that Facebook, ProfileEngine.com and Google’s own YouTube are the top three sites to have content taken down through the new…
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Study: 60 Percent of “Right To Be Forgotten” Requests Denied
Reputation VIP operates the Forget.me website intended to handle Google and Bing “Right to Be Forgotten” (RTBF) requests. Using three months of data, the company has released a study on RTBF’s impact in France, the UK and Germany. There was a smaller, separate study on Spain. It…
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To Avoid Liability, Google Limits German News Content To Headlines
German news and magazine publishers are determined, one way or another, to get Google to pay them for their content. They’re not upset about the content appearing in Google News or search. They want it to appear – they just want Google to pay for it. Google doesn’t want to pay….
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World War II, Communisim Subtext In Right To Be Forgotten
From an American legal perspective the recently established European Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) is a disaster. It’s a confusing, vague, impractical and possibly even dangerous decision. But from a European historical perspective it makes considerable sense. The different histories of the US…
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EU Antitrust Endgame Looking More Murky, Risky For Google
The Wall Street Journal added more color to the unfolding story of the collapse of the Google-European Commission antitrust settlement. Notwithstanding denials by outgoing competition czar Joaquín Almunia, it’s clear that pressure from major European publishers, rivals and politicians…
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German Official: Google Should Reveal Its Ranking Algorithm
One of the unanswered questions in the ongoing European-Google antitrust saga is what concrete changes or concessions critics want (or will accept) from Google. One of those things may have just come to light in a Financial Times interview with German justice minister Heiko Maas. Maas asserts in…
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Publishers To EC: We Want More From Google Or We’ll Sue
As we discussed last week, the current Europe-Google antitrust settlement is dead. This is a surprising turn of events considering that it was once described by European regulators as essentially a done deal. Outgoing European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia confirmed last week in a talk…
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Google Pushes Back Against EU Publisher PR Offensive
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt took to the Google Europe Blog this weekend to defend his company against a Europe-wide ad campaign that asserts Google has abused its dominant market position in search. It’s essentially a public appeal on the same terms being argued to the European…
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EU-Google Antitrust Deal May Be Collapsing
Since the first Google antitrust settlement proposal was announced in 2013 the company’s rivals and critics have complained loudly that it doesn’t go far enough to remedy what they see as Google’s unjustified “diversion” of their traffic to Google’s own…
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