Google News facing an uncertain future

by Peter White May 21st 2007

Since the dawn of time Google News has refused to pay for the right to show snippets from news stories and linking to the external headline, claiming that it constitutes fair use. They've stood by this stubbornly, even as other news sites have one-upped them in news traffic on a continual basis. That makes the story out of the Scotland's Sunday Herald all the more shocking. The story reports that Google has reached a secret deal with a few large UK news groups to license content for Google News. Say it ain't so Google? Secret deals? It all seems so clandestine. It's like that major league slugger who resisted steroids for so long, even as all the other guys were hitting more home runs and getting more attention. And then, finally, reluctantly, he caves and falls to the dark side.

This not-so-secret deal has major implications for the current online news format. One of the big feathers in Google's moral superiority cap is that they don't run ads, so they don't profit from their news site. They're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, sending traffic to the external sites. This is a boost to the fair use argument, proving that they're not doing it for their own gain. However, if Google has to start paying for licensing its news, do you think it's really going to be able to stay ad-free? They may be alright with not making money off of their news site, but there's no way they're going to stand for losing a ton. Implode much?

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Alistair Brown said 12:11PM on 5-25-2007

I think it's broadly accepted that The Sunday Herald got this badly wrong. It didn't ring true when I first read it and Greenslade picked up on it as well (Google have since denied it) ... http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2007/05/gannett_under_fire_over_glasgo.html

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