Last week, Google announced its intentions to shutter its Google News service
in Spain, citing
a law coming into effect in January that would force it to pay for snippets of content. At the end of the week, the Spanish Newspaper Publishers' Association (AEDE) asked the government to intervene in the closure, saying that Google's abandonment of the country would "undoubtedly have a negative impact on citizens and Spanish businesses."
The law, known as the "Google Tax" and ironically lobbied for by the AEDE, dictates how much entities like Google have to pay for each story, and the exact circumstances when Google and others are required to pay. Google's Spanish division is said to be disappointed by the decision of the parliament, but at the time of the law's passing said that it will still work with Spanish publishers to "help them increase their income."
Late last week, Google declared that it would close Google News as a result of copyright law "reform" in Spain. Google's head of Google News said that "this new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable."
AEDE claims that "Given the dominant position of Google (which in Spain controls almost all of the searches in the market and is in effect a gateway to the Internet as a default home page), AEDE requires the intervention of Spanish and community authorities, and competition authorities, to effectively protect the rights of citizens and companies."
It is unclear what the AEDE wants, as it lobbied for the law which caused the closure in the first place. AEDE spokeswoman Irene Lanzaco told
The Spain Report that "we're not asking Google to take a step backwards, we've always been open to negotiations with Google." When asked about the potential closure, Lanzaco said that "of course they are free to close their business, but one thing is the closure of Google News and quite another the positioning in the general index."
Lanzaco added that "Google has not taken a neutral stance" in negotiations about the issue. Also unclear is why the AEDE thinks that Google should take a neutral stance on the topic, given the losses it would incur in the country in becoming a
de facto sponsor of Spanish news agencies.
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