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Google News to shut down in Spain

googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com

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Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#231

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.

For the people making these laws, Google is a disruptive force that menaces the established business models.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#233
post #83

Even worse, this might affect Facebook, Twitter and Spanish Reddit-like site Menéame (very popular there): http://boingboing.net/2014/07/28/spain-pushes-for-google-tax... Just like we have the term 'patent troll', maybe we need the term 'tax troll' for some Governments.

It's not even a tax, all the money will be collected by publishers' lobby groups.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#234
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3.5% of GDP is a large part of the cuts being applied now. The main disagreement is that when the richer countries ignored the deficit limits to increase investment in their economies had no sanctions, while the smaller countries are forced into signing treaties that forbid public investment, in economies that are highly dependant on the public sector. Germany also benefits from being in the common market by having a…

So now, to you, 3.5% is "Most of the wasted money"... 3.5% is no economic pressure compared to the cost of running oversized Government structures. Back in the 80's when cost of capital for these Governments was in the 10%-15% no one really complained. Can you cite the source where "countries ignored the deficit limits to increase investment" and "while the smaller countries are forced into signing treaties that forb…

> countries ignored the deficit limits to increase investment EU finance ministers reject the European Commission’s recommendation to initiate sanctions proceedings against France and Germany for flouting the Stability and Growth Pact’s rules. http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/economic_governance/time...

> smaller countries are forced into signing treaties that forbid public investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Fiscal_Compact

This treaty defines goals that in practice leave no budget for public investment. In the last years Portugal's debt ballooned to 125% of GDP due to all the austerity implemented. Getting this to lower to the standards of the treaty in such short time forces any government to cut spending in essential public services, sell at discount prices natural monopolies such as electricity and water distribution and raise taxes (50%+ total rate for freelancers).

As for the last one, at least in Portugal the biggest amount of money was spend covering for BPN's losses, a small bank with a market share of 2% that required upwards of 5 billion euros of taxpayer's money. Another giant money sink was BPP, an investment bank.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#235
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we only allowed to say good things about Google in here?

You're not being downvoted for saying bad things about Google; you're being downvoted because your post doesn't make sense. As other replies mentioned, everyone knows Google makes most of their money from ads; however, as the referenced blog post states, there are no ads on Google News.

What was the last time you saw a banner in a google site?

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#236
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main media in Spain will start hosting sites abroad to bypass this law. This law is basically a way to hinder smaller media more than collecting money from Google, and in this respect I guess it will work.

It's always the small fish who suffer the most from socialist policies. Only large organisations can justify the resources to out-maneuever punitive legislation. It's a shame that this irony isn't more widely understood.

> socialist policies

That's the funny thing about this. PP is a right-wing conservative ultra-catholic neolibertarian mixture. Not a trace of socialism...

This is simply crony capitalism.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#237
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

about collecting taxes to pay for stuff..isn't it far easier to print new money than to collect old money back?

Not the best solution[0] but it's what happened[1].

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-hyperinflation-episodes...

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/ecb-prints-money-...

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#238
I do think this is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Why couldn't google exclude Spanish news sources from google News?

If I were running Google (which obviously I'm not, and probably for good reason as what I'm about to say might indicate), I would use the companies enormous amount of capital to exclude all major Spanish news outlets and pay the the independent and fringe new outlets what the law demands as an F.U. to the AEDE. But that's just me.

I understand that politics isn't Google's business, but Google (and the Internet) is fast becoming every Politician's business; And I mean "business" as in a way for them to make money for themselves. So like it or not, Google is going to get embroiled in politics. It would be prudent to nip this sort of stuff in the bud, and make a lot of noise while they're doing it.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#239
post #192
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is exactly the market opportunity I'm seeing here: news sites for Spanish news that are based outside Spain. Reporting on issues abroad is still possible, and they may even be able to hire freelancers based in Spain. Or to put it another way: with no way to find Spanish news sites online, Spaniards would become entirely dependent on foreign news sites, which creates an incentive for foreign sites to focus more o…

Creating products for your own country while basing your company abroad seems likely to become a big trend among startups, as tech collides with archaic government regulators. It's already happening in many areas.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#240
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not being downvoted for saying bad things about Google; you're being downvoted because your post doesn't make sense. As other replies mentioned, everyone knows Google makes most of their money from ads; however, as the referenced blog post states, there are no ads on Google News.

What was the last time you saw a banner in a google site?

Depends on your definition of banner, but the answer would be "the last time I used Google Search" which is about 2 minutes ago.
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