Google to start paying publishers for news articles

Google announced today that it will start to pay a select number of publishers as part of a new licensing program to form a whole “new news experience” for end-users. This new experience is set to launch later this year with it appearing first on Google News and Discover services.

Google has stated that this program is, unfortunately, going to be limited to publishers in Australia, Brazil, and Germany but has plans to expand the number of countries soon. According to the Financial Times, it seems that the initial wave of publishing partners includes Schwartz Media in Australia and Der Spiegel in Germany which are two news juggernauts and perfect for the initial launch window.

This announcement follows a wide range of countries attempting to force Google to compensate publishers for their content as well as Facebook launching their new US news tab who are paying publishers right off the bat. So is this just damage control? And Google is just putting this in place now to stop Facebook from taking all the top stories? It’s hard to tell.

Schemes like this are already being criticized by many due to the amount of money paid to publishers being simply not enough as well as the lack of legal documentation with said publishers just relying on the goodwill of the tech overlords.

Overall, this is a step in the right direction from Google and it’s good to see that publishers are finally going to be getting some compensation for providing so much good to the platform. However, is it just not enough? Are publishers going to be paid a large enough sum? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.