Google News closes doors in Spain

Google has pulled the plug on the Spanish version of Google News. The company does not want to pay for indexing news from Spanish media, because the company says it does not earn anything from the news aggregator.

The Spanish version of Google News will close on December 16, before the law goes into effect on January 1, Google has announced. From then on, Spanish media outside of Spain can no longer be found in Google News.

According to Google, the new Spanish law requires publishers to charge money from services like Google News. “Whether they like it or not,” writes Richard Gingras, the head of Google News. Earlier, media reported that Spanish law allows publishers to charge for republishing their work; an obligation to do so was not discussed at the time.

According to Gingras, it is untenable to pay publishers money for showing content. “Google News doesn’t make any money,” Gingras said; no advertisements are shown on the site. Gingras also notes that the service provides more traffic to publishers’ sites and that they can indicate themselves whether or not they want to be in Google News.