Hello fellow students,
Recently Brazilian newspapers span together to Block Google’s news service, Google News.
Google News collects news from all websites and then puts an link on its own “Google News” site. If you want to read the article you will get directed to the site where the article was originally made so they do not have their own reporters searching for the next big thing.
Many news stations approve this way of linking through Google because it increases the traffic on their sites, but the Brazilian journalistic industry does not see the advantages.
The Brazilian stations say that “Google should not benefi commercially from the content it uses and is not prepared to discuss a model of remuneration for this material”. Google replied that they should not have to pay for a service that other parties benefit from.
I think that the Brazilian newspapers should be happy with the increased traffic they get through Google, certainly in this time where a lot of news stations have difficulty to keep their readers through traditional media because everybody reads online. It is true that Google benefits commercially because they provide an extra free service through which they can make profits with advertising. This could be seen as “wrong” but it’s a business model that they have always used.
For now it’s only the Brazilian news stations who blocked Google News with this argument and I wonder which country will follow next.
Do you guys think it’s fair what Google is doing? Or should the Brazilian stations stop with their boycott and be glad that they have more reader?
Jad
