The newspaper industry is as excited as can be over news that Australia has passed a law “requiring” Google to pay for news links. Europe is on deck. They want in on the action.
I’ve written about this scam before. It’s coming from Rupert Murdoch, who controls the Australian media. Most of the money that Google (and Facebook) will pay for news links in Australia will go to Murdoch and his global propaganda machine, not to keeping reporters fed.
So why was Google willing to be tossed into this briar patch? Because it lets them finally monetize Google News, and more thoroughly monetize a related service, Google Now. If Murdoch is going to charge Google for links to his stuff, Google is going to get its money back.
News has been ad-free for over a decade now. It’s great. Tells you, in broad strokes, what’s going on. It lets you try to go deeper. Increasingly, not much deeper. Paywalls have become commonplace on every beat. You click a link and what you want is covered up with a demand to subscribe.
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