Google Threatens French Media Ban 419
another random user writes in with a BBC story about Google's displeasure with proposed French plans to make search engines pay for content. "Google has threatened to exclude French media sites from search results if France goes ahead with plans to make search engines pay for content. In a letter sent to several ministerial offices, Google said such a law 'would threaten its very existence.' French newspaper publishers have been pushing for the law, saying it is unfair that Google receives advertising revenue from searches for news. French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti also favors the idea. She told a parliamentary commission it was 'a tool that it seems important to me to develop.'"
Re:If I were Google (Score:5, Informative)
This sounds familiar...
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0028255/belgian-newspapers-delisted-on-google [slashdot.org]
Re:careful what you wish for (Score:5, Informative)
Google is not making money on their content. Google is making money on the key words entered into their search engine, returning relevant advertisements to...the key words. The people go to the search engine to find content, but Google serves LINKS to others' content (not the content) most relevant to their search terms in order to ancillarily have the chance to serve ads relevant to the users' searches: note that there is an exchange going on here, though intangible and only conceptual: as per the user agreement between users and Google, the user gets to use their search mechanism, and Google gets to serve ads: only the users, therefore, could possibly claim to be owed anything, except they're being provided service, so rather it's they who should be paying (and are with their eyeballs).
What all this means, is exactly what others are saying around here: they just drop the French media, and not do those numbskulls the favor of facilitating contact by other eyeballs with their content: Google provides them with value, not vice versa: I would find poetic a de-listing by Google adding facilities that they may, for a recurring fee, opt-in to the search engine results.
Google only wants the few seconds they get with a visitor to serve ads, and these days they've plenty of their own content (and services, and deals with other content providers e.g. on Youtube) that they don't perhaps need to index and serve results pertaining those other media: I doubt they want to do that because it would make their searches slightly less useful to some, but when people start attacking a big dog to get a cut for something those attackers aren't due any share of, and syndicate with just-as-greedy politicians (who just want more money to spend), then it is time to say "bye bye".
Also, when Google actually puts ads relevant not to keyword searches but content itself, it is by the permission/request of the owner, and the owners are compensated on the click-throughs according to the terms of their agreements. Thus, we see here mere greed, gross ignorance, and unsurprising indignation at sensing a situation unfairness that could only be understood as such by the ignorant.
Re:careful what you wish for (Score:4, Informative)
It's like you wrote it on a huge billboard on a main street, and did not expect passers by to pay, but when someone put up a sign pointing to it then you want to charge them....?
Re:careful what you wish for (Score:5, Informative)
I have mod points and I would mod you down because your logic stinks rather than because I disagree, but I think it is worth commenting on
I, too, have mod points. I do not agree with the above statement. Does that mean I should mod you down? In fact, I'm discarding all of my moderation done so far just so I can point this out to you.
You do not mod someone down merely because their logic stinks. If the person was trolling, that would be something different. GP did not seem to be, however.
The idea behind mod points is not to decide who is right. The idea is to weed out those comments unhelpful to constructive discussion, and keep those that promote it.
Now, had GP been marked "+5 insightful", I might be tempted to hit that "overrated" button. At the time of this writing, however, GP is +2 with no visible moderation, which is, in fact, a little below what it deserves, considering I'm sure others feel the same way, and considering the responses were reasoned and to the point (not that I can fix it now, that I've answered you, of course).
Don't abuse the moderation system. If someone writes a comment you don't agree with, just leave it alone. Disagreeing with you is not the same as trolling.
Shachar
Re:Easy solution french media (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But where to get it (Score:5, Informative)
Screw the french fries, they're Belgian !
I have always wondered how the Belgians felt about our labeling their dish as "French fries"? If I was Belgian I kind of think that would annoy me.
The "French" part comes the type of cut of the potato. French cut: sliced lengthwise into long, thin strips. [reference.com]
Re:But where to get it (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is that serious news gathering, in the old way, is expensive. Keeping a network of reporters distributed round the world in places where news events are liable to happen costs money. Good newspapers have this network by legacy and tradition. They still see value in the networks. So they want to keep them. But as disruptive technologies like Twitter affect the way people consume news, the number of eyeballs on the output produced by those expensive journalistic networks is declining. Because the number of eyeballs is declining, and because other opportunities for advertising are becoming available, the amount that advertisers are prepared to pay for adverts on the 'newspaper' sites is declining. This has precisely nothing to do with search, and it has to do with Google only because Google has made itself a significant platform for advertising. It has to do, fundamentally, with audience share.