<story><title>France fines Google €500M over copyright row</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/technology/france-fines-google-500-mln-over-copyright-row-2021-07-13/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasode</author><text>From a previous article[1] with some more context:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;In 2019, Google announced it was going to stop displaying &amp;quot;snippets&amp;quot; from French news articles in search results. Google believed that showing only news story headlines, not brief excerpts from articles, would bring it into compliance with the new law.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;So even just linking the headlines _without_ the snippets was still not in compliance.&lt;p&gt;We have 30+ years of the world wide web being built on referred url links (with no snippets) without monetary payment but now French news organizations want compensation for it. I don&amp;#x27;t understand that logic. They get extra visibility + traffic clicks from Google -- but also want to be paid for it?!?&lt;p&gt;If after a Apple WWDC event, the front page of HN is filled with url links to Apple press releases and announcements, it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean HN should pay money to Apple Inc to send eyeballs to &amp;quot;apple.com&amp;quot;. Linking to other urls and showing the text between &amp;quot;&amp;lt;title&amp;gt;...&amp;lt;&amp;#x2F;title&amp;gt;&amp;quot; (for free) is how the web works.&lt;p&gt;IMO, removing the embedded snippets should have been enough.  This feels more like a shakedown from French newspapers with backing from the France government rather than fair business compensation.&lt;p&gt;Right now, on the HN frontpage is this headline &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;France fines Google €500M over copyright row (reuters.com)&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;  -- with no snippet -- but according to logic of French newspapers, HN still needs to pay Reuters in Canada a license fee.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;tech-policy&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;google-agrees-to-pay-french-news-sites-to-send-them-traffic&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;tech-policy&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;google-agrees-to...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>johbjo</author><text>&amp;gt; They get extra visibility + traffic clicks from Google -- but also want to be paid for it?!?&lt;p&gt;Visibility is not a meaningful &amp;quot;reward&amp;quot; for established European newspapers (they are not unknown hobby bloggers.) The issue is who is capturing revenue from the work. The newspapers make money from people browsing their site (long ad exposure) or paying for subscriptions.&lt;p&gt;The news model: journalists discover &amp;quot;news facts&amp;quot; which they make into &amp;quot;news stories&amp;quot; that can hold reader attention.&lt;p&gt;If Google collects all &amp;quot;news facts&amp;quot; in one place with their own ads, they are benefiting from journalists while undercutting the newspapers.</text></comment>
<story><title>France fines Google €500M over copyright row</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/technology/france-fines-google-500-mln-over-copyright-row-2021-07-13/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasode</author><text>From a previous article[1] with some more context:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;In 2019, Google announced it was going to stop displaying &amp;quot;snippets&amp;quot; from French news articles in search results. Google believed that showing only news story headlines, not brief excerpts from articles, would bring it into compliance with the new law.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;So even just linking the headlines _without_ the snippets was still not in compliance.&lt;p&gt;We have 30+ years of the world wide web being built on referred url links (with no snippets) without monetary payment but now French news organizations want compensation for it. I don&amp;#x27;t understand that logic. They get extra visibility + traffic clicks from Google -- but also want to be paid for it?!?&lt;p&gt;If after a Apple WWDC event, the front page of HN is filled with url links to Apple press releases and announcements, it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean HN should pay money to Apple Inc to send eyeballs to &amp;quot;apple.com&amp;quot;. Linking to other urls and showing the text between &amp;quot;&amp;lt;title&amp;gt;...&amp;lt;&amp;#x2F;title&amp;gt;&amp;quot; (for free) is how the web works.&lt;p&gt;IMO, removing the embedded snippets should have been enough.  This feels more like a shakedown from French newspapers with backing from the France government rather than fair business compensation.&lt;p&gt;Right now, on the HN frontpage is this headline &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;France fines Google €500M over copyright row (reuters.com)&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;  -- with no snippet -- but according to logic of French newspapers, HN still needs to pay Reuters in Canada a license fee.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;tech-policy&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;google-agrees-to-pay-french-news-sites-to-send-them-traffic&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;tech-policy&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;google-agrees-to...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ksec</author><text>&amp;gt;This feels more like a shakedown from French newspapers with backing from the France government rather than fair business compensation.&lt;p&gt;Not saying Google is right or wrong in this case but;&lt;p&gt;EU have had problems with US tech giant for years with their aggressive business practice and Tax avoidance. Aggressive or ruthless from European perspective but the norm from American&amp;#x27;s POV. Now that even US government are on their side, EU or France in this case are taking every single opportunity to squeeze them.&lt;p&gt;I see it as political power play more than anything else. Google and Apple have been showing middle fingers to government and regulators around the world for years. They have been waiting for the political climate to act on it.</text></comment>