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Google News to shut down in Spain

googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com

241–250 of 272 posts

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#242

May not necessarily be a popular opinion on here, but I'll state it anyway: Google may not directly profit from Google News, but they still manage to extract value from it. We exist in a top-heavy paradigm where giant servers profiteer off the work of everybody else, capturing a disproportionate percentage of the total value created. It's unfortunate but not unexpected that Google's response is this snarky blog post.…

I disagree. The simple fact that a business benefits off another's hard work does not nessecary deprive the worker of their income. Economics is not zero-sum. Google News drives traffic to news sites that would otherwise be isolated to local communities. If anything, Google levels the playing field, allowing any nearby local news to catch as much traffic as the BBC or NYT. So to complain that Google is profiteering s…

> If it becomes harder to consume the news, people won't bother.

I don't know a single person in Spain who uses Google News. Did a quick survey and only 1 out of 20 people I asked knew what Google News was or that it even existed.

Now, think why would the Spanish government do this if Google News usage is so marginal.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#245
post #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.

It is a tax because it is imposed by the Government. It doesn't benefit people but some lobbies. That is true with all taxes to some extent, since a good amount of the money collected goes to subsidies or bailouts.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try reading what I wrote again. Google employs lots of people who work on things which do not directly generate revenue themselves, but which do contribute to the company's overall profit and loss. Such as HR. However, based on Google's bitchy blog post, were they to treat all such projects and departments equally like Google News, thousands of people would be pink-slipped tomorrow. Get it now?

The difference is they do not lose any money if they stop running Google News Spain. They do if they stop running HR.

Actually they'll lose money if they keep running Google News Spain.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#247

Ok, but if i live in Spain and i use vpn with German IP, for example, i have no promblem, isn't it?

You do because you won't be able to read any news from Spanish newspapers. news.google.es will be down, and other Google News sites in Spanish (like the ones from Latin America) won't link to any media from Spain.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#248
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a violation of fair use. welcome to the EU. just to warn you, you might find yourself laughing at their patent law, should you read it and applicable case laws

Case law in EU? Only within the former empire, and significant parts of that pretend to be on the way out.

there's been a few patent rulings that are [pretty wtf] contradictory to what the written law states

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#249
So how is what google news is doing not piracy? I mean, we also have Peter Sunde's post about his ideals on the front page https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8734204 and a large portion of comments seem to be very pro-copyright. How come then, that nobody here is applauding this move? Google news is absolutely breaking copyright - they're publishing others' content without their permission and without paying them. Under any measure what they do is illegal. Why then, is everyone siding with Google news on this? This legislation simply extends compulsory licensing to news publications.

Re: Google News to shut down in Spain

#250
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case law in EU? Only within the former empire, and significant parts of that pretend to be on the way out.

there's been a few patent rulings that are [pretty wtf] contradictory to what the written law states

I follow US patent law and cases quite a bit, but not so much the EU. Could you provide a few examples?
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