Mumbai, Mar 31
Alphabet’s Google has reached licensing deals with over 600 news outlets around the world and is seeing a “huge increase” in users requesting more content from specific publications as part of a new programme, it said on Wednesday.The update comes as big Internet service providers including Facebook have been locked in bitter disputes over fair compensation to publishers. Google is continuing to negotiate with additional publishers, including in the Unites States, to spend $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,300 crore) for what it calls News Showcase.The programme through 2023 is Google’s biggest effort to invest in an industry that blames tech giants for siphoning its advertising revenue. Combined, Facebook and Google control over half of the digital advertising market.Google is exercising little oversight over publishers’ use of the money.”The intention of our payment is to help make it easier for publishers to be able to participate in the program,” Brad Bender, a vice president at Google overseeing News Showcase, told Reuters. “But ultimately it’s in service of creating this more sustainable future for news.”But Google’s hesitance to hold publishers accountable for generating business results with the funds leaves questions about whether the media industry will at last turn a corner after several attempts by tech companies to provide support and improve its outlook.”It’s not up to us to tell a news publisher how to run their business,” Google said.Bender expressed optimism, though, about News Showcase steering publishers toward a brighter future and said the company would support the program beyond the initial $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,300 crore).”We’re committed to being part of the solution,” he said.Publishers from a dozen countries have agreed to license content, Google plans to say in a blog post on Wednesday. Users can see the content in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and Britain, with Italy joining Wednesday.In February, Google said “well over” 500 publishers had signed deals.Google’s lone requirement for funding recipients is that they provide a specified amount of content per day, Bender said. The funding helps publishers staff journalists to arrange the content, known as panels, which are then featured in Google’s News and Discover apps, Bender said.Users can “follow” publishers to get more panels from them. Publishers including The Financial Times and The Canberra Times collectively are generating 7,000 panels per day and users have registered 200,000 follows, Google plans to announce.
