By the end of the trial, EU news publishers will find out exactly how much traffic they would lose without Google
As Google continues to grapple with its relationship with publishers, regulators and readers, it is launching a fairly drastic test that looks like a warning, as it will remove news content from publishers based in the European Union from search.
The “test” is supposed to be aimed at determining how traffic and the overall search experience will be affected, but it won’t appear for all users, The Verge reports. Google will remove EU news content from search results, Google News and Discover for only 1% of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Spain.
Google says it is running the “time-limited” test because EU regulators and publishers “requested additional data on the impact of news content on Search.” The tech giant says it will continue to show results from websites and news publishers located outside the EU, and will continue to show results from EU news publishers once the trial ends.
This may just be a small experiment, but it almost feels like a warning, the Verge reports. By the end of the trial, EU news publishers will find out exactly how much traffic they would lose without Google. The experiment may also give Google some insight into how much its users actually care about news. This is something Facebook also looked into – eventually leading Meta to remove the News tab and stop paying publishers altogether.
In recent years, Google has fought hard against regulations that would have forced the company to compensate publishers for their content. In the EU, Google is required to comply with the European Copyright Directive, which results in hundreds of publishers licensing content on the block. Earlier this year, France ordered Google to pay $272 million after finding that the search giant violated an agreement providing for compensation for news groups.
Google recently removed links to California news outlets in response to the state’s “Protection of Journalism” law. It also threatened to remove links to local media in Canada, and almost pulled its search engine from Australia over similar legislation. If this small test in the EU is a sign of the “next day”, Google may be preparing even more drastic measures in the future.
