Google Threatens To Pause Google News Initiative Funding In US (axios.com) 20
Google has warned nonprofit newsrooms that a new California bill taxing Big Tech for digital ad transactions would jeopardize future investments in the U.S. news industry. "This is the second time this year Google has threatened to pull investment in news in response to a regulatory threat in California -- but this time, hundreds of publishers outside of California would also feel the impact," reports Axios. From the report: Google's new outreach to smaller news outlets is happening in response to a different bill, introduced this year by State Sen. Steve Glazer, that would tax Big Tech companies like Google and Meta for "data extraction transactions," or digital ad transactions. Tax revenue would fund tax credits meant to support the hiring of more journalists in California by eligible nonprofit local news organizations. With the link tax bill, Google only threatened to pull news investments in California. But the company is telling partners that the ad tax proposal will threaten consideration of new grants nationwide by the Google News Initiative, which funds hundreds of smaller news outlets, sources told Axios. Previous commitments, however, should be secure. A spokesperson for the Institute for Nonprofit News said the organization believes that grants previously committed through GNI as described here "are secure, so INN members should continue to benefit through this particular Fundamentals Labs program."
Google's concern, sources familiar with the company's thinking told Axios, is that the new California ad tax bill could set a troubling wider precedent for other states. California's Senate tax committee approved the "ad tax" bill May 8. Days after that, Google started making calls to nonprofits about potentially pausing future Google News Initiative funding, sources told Axios. Opponents argue (PDF) the ad tax burden would get passed down to consumers and businesses. They also say the measure would face legal challenges, similar to a digital ad tax introduced in Maryland last year.
Google's concern, sources familiar with the company's thinking told Axios, is that the new California ad tax bill could set a troubling wider precedent for other states. California's Senate tax committee approved the "ad tax" bill May 8. Days after that, Google started making calls to nonprofits about potentially pausing future Google News Initiative funding, sources told Axios. Opponents argue (PDF) the ad tax burden would get passed down to consumers and businesses. They also say the measure would face legal challenges, similar to a digital ad tax introduced in Maryland last year.
No more news meddling by BigTech sounds fine. (Score:5, Informative)
Not that there are any independent news outlets left anyway.
The real fix is no tracking (Score:5, Insightful)
Get rid of tracking and the ad industry playing field goes back to even.
What news industry? (Score:1, Interesting)
What news industry? Less tracking and actually paying for Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, or other places that have actual journalism, not just pissy propaganda, would be nice.
If Google pulled their Google news in the US, nothing of value would be lost. Facebook did it, and nobody really cares.
Assume they're lying (Score:5, Informative)
Google is no different the old tobacco peddlers. They lie, buy legislation, capture regulators, break the law, anything they think they can get away with. Even if they know they will eventually get caught it makes no difference. As long as they are making big profits today tomorrow doesn't count.
They know they will never be penalized to the extent it will impact the real amount of money they've already made. They will never loose in the long run and they know it. Why change?
Re: (Score:2)
We're talking about non-profit news organizations, like CNN... oh, wait, "unprofitable" isn't the same as "non-profit"? Nevermind.
Please do. (Score:4, Informative)
The news sucks enough already.
Re: (Score:2)
Google won't be distributing the funds, CA Gov't will be...
Google News is essentially non-profit (Score:2)
Google News is one of the last pieces of the original Google that does not prioritize money over core purpose. As in, there are actually no ads in the Google News main page, nor they charge for anything, except publisher subscriptions, like New York Times, which goes to publishers themselves.
The way they make money is by increasing traffic to those news sites. Hence increasing their ad revenue, and indirectly having returns, while keeping those publishers alive. It is a win-win situation, and most of the ti
Re:Google News is essentially non-profit (Score:5, Informative)
They collect no data on anyone's news browsing habits, and do not correlate that with the ubiquitous Gmail social networking contact data, which in turn is not used in conjunction with their browser stranglehold, and is not related to search results, which not monetized, and they collect no revenue by selling search order priority to the highest bidder. They are as pure as the freshly fallen snow.
Also the world is flat, the moon is made of green cheese, a cow can jump over the moon, Santa Clause is real and delivers all Xmas gifts in one night using a sled with reindeer, no one has ever lied to you ever, honestly is universally rewarded while evil is always punished, all business is honest, you will always get fair treatment, no one will ever mean me to you or say anything bad about you, you will never be late, no one will ever keep you waiting, and your life was, is and will always be perfect.
Re: (Score:2)
What are you talking about?
Google has warned nonprofit newsrooms that a new California bill taxing Big Tech for digital ad transactions would jeopardize future investments in the U.S. news industry.
Taxing ad transactions...
Tax revenue would fund tax credits meant to support the hiring of more journalists in California by eligible nonprofit local news organizations.
...To fund journalists in non-profit news rooms.
This has nothing to do with Google sharing news stories from other sources, it's about tapping into Google's ad revenue.
Re: (Score:2)
Think of it this way - google currently gives money to non-profit news organizations, and the government wants to do the same thing, and to fund it the gov't wants to impose a new tax on digital ad sales by Google. Google simply said, if the CA Govt wants to start taxing our ad sales to and then turn around and give that money to non-profit news organizations, then there's no reason for Google to keep giving money directly to the non-profit news groups...
It's like, "I used to donate to PBS, but when the gov
Nibbling around the edges... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
As long as google complies with gov't extortion demands, pays all these taxes to fund politicians pet project (state-funded newsrooms? What a great idea!) google is safe from being broken-up.
Google, you got one important thing wrong here (Score:2)
You can only threaten with something that people don't already hope you'd do.
Ok (Score:1)