Google announced on Wednesday that it has launched its News Showcase product in the United Kingdom, which means that for the first time the company will pay for the news it republishes.
The company has signed a deal with 120 British news companies, including the Financial Times and Reuters, to pay a licensing fee to produce news excerpts that appear in Google News Showcase. Reports suggest that publishers will receive millions of dollars a year from Google.
The feature will be in the Google News mobile app and Google Discover, which is a Google-curated feed on mobile devices that contains articles and videos.
When users click on excerpts in the Google News app or Google Discover, they will be taken to the full article on the website .
“Google News Showcase, the new product for news, will begin rolling out with local, national and independent publishers in the UK,” Ronan Harris, vice president and managing director at Google UK, said in a blog post on Wednesday.
“As part of our licensing agreements with publishers, we are also introducing the ability for readers to access select paywalled content. This feature will give readers the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s content – than they would otherwise have access to – while allowing publishers to encourage readers to become subscribers.”
Around the world, Google has convinced 450 news outlets to produce content for Google News Showcase.
The feature has also been rolled out in Australia, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France ,Japan , and Argentina. Google said discussions are underway in many more countries.
Tech giants like Facebook and Google are under increasing pressure to pay media companies for content . Last October, Google said it would pay $1 billion to publishers for news over the next three years.
Information source: cnbc.com
