Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google News to shut down in Spain

googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 272 posts

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#181

Post by mattbarrie »

rgbrenner wrote: post #107
diminoten wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I post a Spanish story to HN (or Reddit) and use the title of the article as the submission title? Will the company hosting the site have to pay up?

NO, because neither Reddit nor HN operate in Spain, and therefore are not subject to Spannish law.

I wouldn't bet on it.

Maybe you are not aware of the new EU VAT on digital downloads, which is taxed in the country of purchase, not country of sale.

http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/2...

The way discussion on taxation is going globally I wouldn't be surprised if more legislation heads this way, or at the very least a presence test is applied to see if the company has a physical office in country.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#182

Post by antr »

tomp wrote: post #179
antr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you get the "30%-35% real unemployment" figures, that to me seems absurd given that European economies are known to have large underground economies in the region of 15% of GDP... and in the case of Spain somewhat larger[0]. Albeit, unofficial, the number of jobs created by a shadow economy of €253bn is too large to ignore. Now, 25% of GDP is underground economy, and 25% unemployment seem to have s…

> The problem to me seems to be a budget balance issue: how can Governments pay for services that a large number of the population uses, but doesn't pay. If the population doesn't pay, who does? The way taxes work, is that the population pays the taxes to the government, and the government in return pays for/provides certain services. Taxation is basically just like insurance, coupled with some sort of progressive re…

> If the population doesn't pay, who does?

Like in most countries, including the US, budget deficit is paid with debt, and increase in taxes. That is the problem. The solution here is to uncover the underground economy, make them pay taxes (at reasonable rates), although this is no silver bullet.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#183

Post by SiVal »

carlesfe wrote: post #149

I wrote a bit about this in July, when the law was passed, if you want an opinion from a Spaniard: http://cfenollosa.com/blog/spanish-media-just-shot-themselve... Let's summarize what is happening here: Big media editors AEDE, most of which pro-government, in collusion with the corrupt Spanish politicians have managed a masterstroke which they think will: 1. Get them free money 2. Destroy the discoverability of small…

According to the article:

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.

This sounds as though it won't matter if Spanish news aggregators move abroad, because the law applies to the Spanish news sources themselves, not the aggregator. Unless I'm misunderstanding (and maybe I am, so correct me), if a news publisher inside Spain doesn't demand payment from an aggregator located outside Spain, the publisher in Spain gets punished by the Spanish law.

This approach would be a nasty way to do as you said: limit the ability of smaller, alternative news sources, to attract readers. Unless they left Spain, they would not be allowed to volunteer their content to any free aggregator anywhere, and if they DID leave Spain, they would lose the ability to report on local Spanish issues.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#184

Post by eva1984 »

Interestingly enough, I found myself searching through news.google.es and using google translate to navigate the local news about impending shutdown of itself. Pure irony.

This reminds me the situation is actually bilateral. Unlike the precedent cases, it will block NOT ONLY Spain but also the WHOLE WORLD to access to a lot of Spanish content. In effect, this is, IMHO, even worse than China's infamous Great Firewall, which is evil but not stopping google to index local articles.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#185

Post by JetSpiegel »

yxhuvud wrote: post #147
eru wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it conservative? The law seems quite disruptive to me.

It is conservative in that it tries to preserve the current order. Of course, as with most such conservative stupidities, it fails by not understanding how the current order actually work.

Considering the "current order" is Google News existing and as a result it doesn't anymore, that fits the disruptive tag perfectly.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#187

Post by santialbo »

It was really funny when they published an article in El Pais comparing news aggregators with piracy and you could see the social sharing buttons next to it including those news aggregators they hated so much.

Like we say here, con dos cojones.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#188

Post by JetSpiegel »

antr wrote: post #164
adventured wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American I watch Europe pretty closely, and I've seen some things that are worrisome such as increasing amounts of fascism (anti-freedom / anti-privacy)... but, things seem to be getting pretty freaky almost everywhere, freedom seems to be on the retreat globally. For Spain, speaking sociologically, how long can an advanced country have 30%-35% real unemployment, before there are severely destabilizing effects…

I don't know where you get the "30%-35% real unemployment" figures, that to me seems absurd given that European economies are known to have large underground economies in the region of 15% of GDP... and in the case of Spain somewhat larger[0]. Albeit, unofficial, the number of jobs created by a shadow economy of €253bn is too large to ignore. Now, 25% of GDP is underground economy, and 25% unemployment seem to have s…

> how can Governments pay for services that a large number of the population uses, but doesn't pay

What do you mean by "large number of the population"? Most of the wasted money that Spain, Portugal and Greece pay are the interest on the loans they had to take to bail out the banks. Including having billions sitting around waiting for the banks to fail. Of course the banks say they don't need it, but the interest is almost nil, so they all took loans from that money to borrow to the economy with giant profits. Those loans provided by the international institutions are simply wealth redistribution, from the poorer southern countries to the richer countries.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#189

Post by einrealist »

SiVal wrote: post #183
carlesfe wrote: post #149

I wrote a bit about this in July, when the law was passed, if you want an opinion from a Spaniard: http://cfenollosa.com/blog/spanish-media-just-shot-themselve... Let's summarize what is happening here: Big media editors AEDE, most of which pro-government, in collusion with the corrupt Spanish politicians have managed a masterstroke which they think will: 1. Get them free money 2. Destroy the discoverability of small…

According to the article: 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. This sounds as though it won't matter if Spanish news aggregators move abroad, because the law applies to the Spanish news sources themselves, not the aggregator. Unless I'm misunderstanding (and maybe I am, so…

I guess, the law may also be in conflict with EU law/rulings/contracts. Aggregator companies outside Spain have an advantage over those within the spanish jurisdiction. So those spanish companies can call the European Court to fight the spanish law.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#190

Post by 0A0D66 »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #185
yxhuvud wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is conservative in that it tries to preserve the current order. Of course, as with most such conservative stupidities, it fails by not understanding how the current order actually work.

Considering the "current order" is Google News existing and as a result it doesn't anymore, that fits the disruptive tag perfectly.

It wants to go back 10-15 years - not create a new order as is usually implied by the word disruptive. Reactionary might be the best word for it.
Post reply on HN