Google news payments won’t cover search

The tech giant’s local boss says media companies get enough value from click-throughs, and shouldn’t be paid any extra.  

The tech giant had previously resisted deals to pay publishers for news, and Ms Silva said the rationale behind the about-face was that the company wanted to benefit its users. Picture: AFP

Despite reaching agreements with multiple publishers Google Australia has confirmed it will not pay for news that appears in its searches, with the company’s boss Melanie Silva declaring that news publications derive enough value from the clicks they receive from Google.

Google on Thursday night announced it had landed agreements with a number of publishers to license news content, including in Australia, in an about-face that shows the tech giant is ready to begin paying for news. The company has reached agreements with Adelaide-based local newspaper publisher Solstice Media, Schwartz Media and The Conversation, as well as Germany’s Spiegel Group, publisher of Der Spiegel; and Brazilian media company Diarios Associados.

Melanie Silva managing director, Google Australia & New Zealand.

In a briefing with The Australian on Friday, Ms Silva said however that the agreements would be limited to a new app that Google will launch later next year and won‘t cover news snippets that appear in Google’s web searches.

“This is a completely new product, where we’re paying for a much richer storytelling experience,” she told The Australian. “We’re paying for access to content that makes it behind a paywall, but it’s a completely different product to search.

“At this stage, the value is what we provide through traffic. That’s the position on search.”

Michael Miller, News Corp Australasia executive chairman said: “Google’s clarification that it won’t pay for news that appears in search confirms the deals it has struck with small publishers are not a genuine recognition of the need to pay for the content they take and profit from on their main platform.

“Google is taking advantage of some publishers when they are at their most vulnerable.

“A proper code of conduct that addresses the power imbalance between the platforms and publishers would protect news creators from this kind of behaviour,” Mr Miller said.

News Corp is the publisher of The Australian.

Copyright reform

France recently announced it would force Google to pay for news that appears in searches, following copyright reform that the EU passed last year.

Australia’s consumer watchdog may force something similar when it hands down its forthcoming mandatory bargaining code at the end of July.

Ms Silva denied that the timing of these partnerships was related to the ACCC‘s forthcoming code between tech giants like Google and news publishers, which will force the tech giants to pay for news they take from media outlets.

Google on Thursday only announced partnership deals in countries where regulation is looming, including in Australia, Brazil and Germany.

“These things don‘t happen overnight. We’ve actually been working on this since late last year. So, the work around this actually predates the mandatory code by some months,” she said. “I think it’s important to realise though that we’ve been listening, and I think we’ve got a history over the last 20 years of listening.

“[Deals in Australia, Brazil and Germany] have been announced because that’s where the deals have been done. I think there are conversations going on in more than half a dozen other countries, and the reason we wanted to sort of share this now is because the deals were being done.”

The tech giant had previously resisted deals to pay publishers for news, and Ms Silva said the rationale behind the about-face was that the company wanted to benefit its users.

“This is a new experience that meets users where they are,” she said. “There are some users who will go and search for news, there are other users who are enjoying the scrolling kind of experience, so that creates a really good opportunity for publishers to surface their content in front of a new set of users who may not be searching or looking for them.

“The user benefit is actually the key driver.”