ANKARA
Google News has announced that it will shut down its Spanish service following a new copyright law that requires Google to pay for using publishers’ content.
"As a result of a new Spanish law, we will shortly have to close Google News in Spain," Richard Gingras, Head of Google News said on Wednesday.
The Spanish government passed the new copyright law in October claiming that it will protect the country's print media industry.
"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," Gingras said.
The tech giant in a statement said they will close on Dec. 16 as the copyright law comes into effect in Jan. 1, 2015.
The new copyright law is also known as the "Google tax," which requires services that post links and excerpts of news articles to pay a fee to the Association of Editors of Spanish Dailies.
Gingras argued that Google News itself makes no money, "publishers can choose whether or not they want their articles to appear in Google News -- and the vast majority choose to be included for very good reasons," Gingras said.
"We are committed to helping the news industry meet that challenge and look forward to continuing to work with our thousands of partners globally, as well as in Spain, to help them increase their online readership and revenues," Gingras added.
Germany passed a similar law and Google removed newspapers from Google News but publishers later reached an agreement with the company after traffic to its sites plunged.
www.aa.com.tr/en
