Google news to quit Spain

GOOGLE NEWS will quit Spain in response to a new intellectual property law.

After the Spanish Government passed a new piece of legislation which seeks to protect local publishers by requiring online content aggregators – including Google –  to pay for using their content, online search giant Google decided to shut down Google News in the country and to remove Spanish media outlets from the service.

The announcement was made by the tech giant on Wednesday (December 10) and the decision will reportedly come into effect on December 16.

The law will also affect Yahoo News and grants authorities the power to slap fines of up to €600,000 on websites that link pirated content.

According to Google, the company makes no profit from its search-based service. “This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google news for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable. So it’s with real sadness that on December 16 (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain,” said Head of Google News Richard Gingras in a blog post.

Spain is not the first European country to charge online content aggregators. In fact, Germany, France and Belgium have similar legislation. The difference is the Spanish publishers do not have a saying on whether they actually want to charge a fee or not, because the law makes it mandatory.

It is difficult to estimate what the consequences of Google’s decision will be. However, according to the tech giant Google News generates 10 billion clicks a month around the world.