Google News to shut down in Spain after new tax passed
Source: Associated Press
Google said Thursday it will shut down its Google News service in Spain to prevent publishers' content from appearing on it -- ahead of a new law requiring the Internet search company to pay Spanish news organizations for linked content or snippets of news.
The move marks the first time globally that Google Inc. will shutter Google News and comes ahead of a new Spanish intellectual property law going into effect Jan. 1 nicknamed the "Google Tax."
... The law did not specify how much publishers would have to be paid by Google. Spain's AEDE group of news publishers lobbied for the law nicknamed the "Google Tax" and Google said publishers would be forced to charge the company "for showing even the smallest snippets of their content -- whether they want to charge or not."
... Google News has long rankled newspaper publishers and other content providers who contend the service tramples on copyrights by creating a digital kiosk of headlines and story snippets gathered from other websites.
Read more: http://www.newsday.com/news/world/google-news-to-go-dark-in-spain-over-google-tax-1.9702616