For a limited time, the business is deleting connections to news from California for certain users.
A California law that would require Google and other platforms to pay media outlets is being opposed by the search behemoth Google, which pulled in more than $73 billion in profits in the previous year. The firm made the announcement that it will be commencing a “short-term test” about the blocking of connections to local California news sites for a “small percentage” of users located within the state of California.
In reaction to the California Journalism Preservation Act, which is a bill that would make Google, Meta, and other platforms to pay California publishers royalties in exchange for connections, this move has been taken. A “link tax” is what the proposed bill, which was approved by the state Assembly the previous year, amounted to, according to Jaffer Zaidi, who is the Vice President of News Partnerships at Google.
According to what Zaidi says, “If the CJPA is passed, it may result in significant changes to the services that we are able to provide to Californians and the traffic that we are able to provide to California publishers.” However, despite the fact that the measure has not yet been passed into law, Google has decided to provide publishers and users in the state of California with a preview of what the potential changes could look like.
In an effort to “measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience,” the firm has announced that it will temporarily test the practice of banning links to California news sites that would be covered by the law. In his statement, Zaidi did not specify the size of the examination or the duration of its duration. Additionally, Google has decided to stop spending any additional money on newsrooms in the state of California. This decision includes the cancellation of “new partnerships through Google News Showcase, our product and licensing program for news organizations, and planned expansions of the Google News Initiative.”
Hardball techniques have been used by other firms in response to new regulations that try to compel technology companies to pay for journalism. Google is not the only company to deploy these tactics. Immediately following the passage of a law that was analogous to the one in Canada, Meta removed news from Facebook and Instagram. Meta has vowed to do the same in California. (Meta did finally cut deals to pay publishers in Australia subsequent to the implementation of a law in 2021; but, the company said last month that it would be terminating those partnerships.)
In response to local copyright restrictions that would have necessitated licensing payments, Google withdrew its News service from Spain for a period of seven years. This action showed that Google’s track record with this matter is not entirely consistent. In spite of this, the business reached agreements with Australian publishers that were valued approximately $150 million. In addition, it subsequently retracted its threats to remove news from search results in Canada and paid a total of approximately $74 million. These numbers, despite the fact that they may appear to be quite substantial, are nevertheless a very small portion of the ten to twelve billion dollars that academics believe Google ought to be paying to publishers.