Both Google and Apple currently offer a news aggregator service in the form of Google News and Apple News. However, back in 2019, Apple launched a premium version called Apple News+ in which it gave users access to a bunch of online newspapers and magazines for a price of $9.99 a month.Now according to report from The Wall Street Journal, it appears that Google could be planning on something similar as well. The report claims that Google has been in talks with various publishers not just in the US, but also other regions like France and other parts of Europe, where they are attempting to reach some kind of licensing agreement.
Following the report, Richard Gingras, VP of news at Google issued a statement which seems to somewhat confirm it by saying, “We want to help people find quality journalism – it’s important to informed democracy and helps support a sustainable news industry. We care deeply about this and are talking with partners and looking at more ways to expand our ongoing work with publishers, building on programs like our Google News Initiative.”
It is unclear whether this final product could end up being similar to Apple News+ where customers pay a monthly subscription, or if Google will pay to license this content but make it freely accessible so that more users can read it, while leveraging its userbase to sell ads.
Filed in . Read more about Apple News and Google. Source: wsj