Google News has decided to end its News in Spain because of a new tax imposed in that country.
This means there will be no more News in Spain but also that there will be no news about Spain from any Spanish news publisher in any of Google News output.
Google said that its news product for Spain will stop on Dec. 16.
Spain will introduce new intellectual property laws in January. Google believes this will require every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News if any of their content is shown on the Google site.
The law was drawn up in an attempt to protect Spain’s print media industry and publishers could claim up to €600,000 from websites for links to pirated material.
Richard Gingras, head of Google News, said the fines would make its work unsustainable. Google News, he added, does not make any money as it has no advertising.
A similar law in Germany saw Google News ask publishers to choose if they wanted their articles to appear on Google News.
"The vast majority choose to be included for very good reason. Google News creates real value for these publications by driving people to their websites, which in turn helps generate advertising revenues," Gingras said.
Germany’s largest news publisher, Axel Springer, found that traffic to its sites plunged without free publicity from Google News items. Had it pressed Google for licensing fees, the company would have “shot ourselves out of the market”, according to Axel Springer’s CEO.
