“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain”, but in the case of Google over in Spain, the rain has definitely caused plenty of misery to Google News in that European nation. Basically, the news indexing and search service in that part of the world will be shut down – and this has been attributed to a copyright law that was passed not too long ago over in Spain.
Robert Gingras, head of Google News, shared, “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.”
Google News was rolled out to the masses initially all the way back in 2002, where it eventually grew to the monstrosity that it is today – being available in 70 international editions while offering news in 35 different languages. Of course, this is definitely not the first time that other countries have actually challenged Google’s News service, as Germany also passed a similar law last year, although it did leave some leeway for aggregators to show off individual words or “small text snippets.”
Expect Google News to bid goodbye to those in Spain this December 16th, which is a good half month before the law goes into effect in January next year. [Press Release]