Media company News Corp files complaint against Google for scraping

News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s company that includes The Wall Street Journal, has filed a complaint with the European Commission over the fact that Google would scrape the content of news stories and display it in its search results.

This would strengthen the company’s dominant position in the European market, The Wall Street Journal reported citing sources. According to News Corp., a company cannot refuse to allow Google to copy the content of news stories, because then the company no longer shows search results from the publisher in question. Such a complaint from an organization is the start of a procedure, in which the European Commission can start an investigation, for example by requesting information from the parties involved.

A Google spokesperson told the newspaper that the company “generates billions of free clicks for the websites of news publishers.” The European Commission has been drawing attention to Google for some time, for example because the company would favor its own price comparison service in search results. Android is also in the interest of the Commission, because Google would demand exclusivity from tablet and smartphone makers when installing its mobile apps. A complaint would be prepared in this case.

Recently, the European Commissioner for the Digital Market, Andrus Ansip, stated that a clarification of copyright will be forthcoming, which relates, among other things, to the situation in which a news aggregator takes over all or part of news items and thus earns money. The question is whether this will have consequences for Google. In 2009, Murdoch already wanted his news sites to be no longer visible to Google, once they had switched to a payment model.