Memo from Google to European policy-makers: "We won't pay the 'link tax'!"

By Emmanuel Legrand

European policy-makers have been scrambling to find an answer to Google's decision not to remunerate European news publishers for the use of their content on Google News, despite a provision in the recent Copyright Directive which introduced a neighbouring right for news publishers (originally Article 11, now 15). Google's decision was aimed at France, which became the first country to implement the new right in its legislation, following a July 25 vote by the Parliament. 

  French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with La Montagne newspaper that Google's decision will not deter France, and other European countries, from implementing the Directive. "We are going to start implementing the law," he said. "A company, even a very large company, cannot get away with it when it decides to operate in France." 

  Google announced on September 25 that it will display just headlines rather than news snippets, if publishers agree to provide them for free, and that it refused to pay for news items as a matter of principle.

  “In the wake of new copyright law in France, Google will change the way it presents search results for European press publications to people in that country,” wrotethe company on its updated European press publisher FAQ. “Specifically, Google will no longer present snippets and thumbnail images in France for these publications unless publishers displaying content in France have specified how much of this content they want to show in search results.”

Google doesn't pay publishers

  Google VP of news Richard Gingras explained in a blogpost the platform's policy with regards to news items. “We don’t accept payment from anyone to be included in search results. We sell ads, not search results, and every ad on Google is clearly marked. That’s also why we don’t pay publishers when people click on their links in a search result.”

  French minister of culture Franck Riester was particularly incensed by Google's decision. “I met with the head of Google News [Gingras] this morning at the Ministry of Culture,” said Riester to journalists on the day Google made its decision public. “I sent him a very strong message about the need to build win-win partnerships with publishers and news agencies and journalists. The answer he gave me a few minutes later was stonewalling. This is unacceptable.”

  France’s Alliance of the Press of General Information, the European Newspapers Publishers Association, and the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers condemned Google's decision. “Google is not above the law,” said the ENPA. “European publishers intend to remain united in the face of intimidation and demand that EU legislation be respected. Otherwise, a free, independent and quality press will not be able to find its viability in the European Union.”

Build harmonious relations

  The Alliance of the Press of General Information commissioned a study from EY-Parthenon which estimating that between €250-320 million in revenue were lost by French publishers due to the dominance of the advertising market by Google and Facebook. Google's Gingras countered that news content generates over 8 billion clicks per month in Europe through Google’s search engine and that advertising-sharing schemes produce billions in revenues for publishers.

  For David Assouline, who was the French Parliament's rapporteur on the copyright law, Google should take note that the law has changed in Europe. "There will be neighbouring rights and digital giants would do well to quickly become aware of them to create harmonious and respectful relations with publishers now,” said Assouline. “Any other attitude on their part, in addition to impoverishing their offer, will be judged harshly by the people and governments of the European Union."

A bad solution to a real problem?

  A dissenting voice came from the French organisation the Union of Independent Online News Press (Spiil), calling the neighbouring rights for publishers "a bad solution to a real problem." Legally, the law has already shown its limits, according to Spiil, since Google managed to "easily circumvent it." 

  In addition Spiil argued that the law does not provide a real definition of what is a news gathering media, nor does it specifies what should the remuneration be, how to collect it and distribute it. Spiil added that the unintended consequences of the neighboring right will be to "mechanically create a click race, since, among potentially other elements, the click will be remunerated."

  Instead, Spiil suggested to build a "true democratic regulation of online press" with "a real equality of treatment in the digital distribution of the press." Spiil called for "new digital rules ... to be imagined and negotiated by a united press, with search engines and social networks"

  Forbes columnist Nicole Martin, the owner of NR Digital Consulting and host of Talk Digital To Me Podcast, wrote that "for anyone familiar with Google’s business tactics, this comes at no surprise.” She added: “They made it clear from the beginning of the talks of the new copyright law that they believed it does more harm than good to news publishers and that they did not agree with the proposal. They have numbers and facts to back up their position on the matter, but the EU continues to push on this new link tax and do not seem to be backing down yet.”