German Newspapers File Antitrust Suit Against Google
It would seem that the Associated Press and Rupert Murdoch’s aversion for Google has spread across the pond, as we now learn that a large group of German newspapers (301 to be exact) have filed suit against Google.
The Federation of German Newspaper Publishers and the Association of German Magazine Publishers filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, for misappropriation of their news content and snippets from articles. The two publishing groups are demanding that Google pay them for showing summaries of their content in search results. Given that on average, over 35% of readers to a newspaper site get there via search (if SEO optimized), I think it odd for publishers to take this type of a stance. The idea is not just to entertain and wow your loyal readers, but to capture the attention of new followers to increase your Web sites value proposition, through audience numbers. Further to this point, new readers obviously haven’t bookmarked or typed the URL of a newspaper into their browser and so to capture them, the natural reliance is on search.
Newspaper and magazines for that matter that stifle themselves off of search are paving a path for the direct opposite of building a strong online platform that is monetizable, and the smart publishers will tell you that creating the appropriate business model online for newspapers is one of their primary focus’ for 2010. Without a strong, diverse online value proposition, publishers will find it hard to continue amongst the bevvy of new online players that have gained in traffic, loyalty and reader trust over the past five years. Search and search traffic is just one of the many ‘things the newspaper industry needs to ‘get right’ to contend.
