If you’re living in the EU and you use Google News quite frequently to gain access to the latest articles and news topics, then maybe it’s time to start searching for alternatives because according to Google’s top news exec, he has hinted that Google News could be forced to shut down in the EU over “link tax”.For those unfamiliar with “link tax”, basically it is where some government officials believe that aggregation sites, such as Google News, should pay for news links. This was a law that was passed in Spain several years ago in an attempt to help print businesses that might be losing customers to digital alternatives.
Richard Gingras, the search engine’s vice-president of news pointed out that as a result of this “link tax”, Google ultimately decided to shut down Google News in the country, and noted that this could be happening again in the EU if plans for a “link tax” were to become a reality. Gingras noted that “it’s not desirable to shut down services”, but also stated that a decision would be made once the final language of the legislation that was proposed in Brussels has been settled.
He also noted that Google News was not created for-profit reasons. “There’s no advertising in Google News. It is not a revenue-generating product to Google. We think it’s valuable as a service to society. We are proud to have it as part of the stable of properties that people have.”
