It is no secret that Google has had its hands full dealing with publisher complaints from all around the world. Back in July Spain passed the “Google Tax” No one really knows exactly how it will work as it does not apply to all Spanish publishers just daily newspapers.
Google has been going round and round in Germany as well. Back in August it was reported that a German regulator would not pursue a complaint from a group of German publishers that banded together to go after Google for linking to their content.
Today Loek Essers is reporting that Google has taken some precautionary measures and stopped showing snippets and thumbnails of some German publishers.
The publisher’s claim is based on a German online copyright law that came into effect last August, giving publishers the exclusive right to the commercial use of their content and parts thereof, except in the case of single words or small text snippets.
The decision is the result of ongoing legal action started by several German news publishers that are members of the collecting society VG Media. After Google refused to compensate the publishers, they sued in June to get a cut of the ad revenue the company makes when it republishes parts of their news articles.
The publishers plan to keep going after Google as they want what they see as their fair share of advertising revenues. Google does control 93 % of the German search market.
Google maintains that it works hard to help news publishers generate an audience and revenue online, with over half a billion clicks for German news publishers each month. In addition, Google’s advertising partnerships have generated over €1 billion (US$1.3 billion) in revenue for German publishers over the last three years, Justus said.
Read the full story on Computer World