After receiving a lot of pressure from a group German publishers, Google is changing the way its search engine handles news articles. The company is now removing excerpts and image thumbnails from its web search results for sites like bild.de, bunte.de or hoerzu.de and replacing them with headlines and story links.
Backed by a group of powerful publishers like Axel Springer SE and Burda, the syndicate known as VG Media argued that Google was allowing people to bypass their websites’ paywalls and felt the company should pay them a cut of the ad revenue it earned while wrongfully displaying a news article. By changing its practices, the search giant is likely looking to avoid any additional legal risks in a country where it’s already fighting several other court cases.
(via Computer World)
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