Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

This is the best summary I could come up with:

“If passed, CJPA may result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers,” Jaffer Zaidi, Google VP of global news partnerships, wrote in a blog post announcing the decision.

“The testing process involves removing links to California news websites, potentially covered by CJPA, to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience.”

An Electronic Frontier Foundation report notes that half of every ad dollar gets eaten up by fees, while subscriptions are subject to app store taxes.

Google alleges that it already drives traffic to publishers and that this sort of legislation favors media conglomerates at the risk of further hollowing out local papers.

A 2023 study estimates that Google would owe US publishers around $10 to 12 billion annually should the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act — a national bill — come into effect.

Ultimately, Google caved and cut a deal with several Australian publishers — and Australia’s success led other countries like the US, UK, Canada, and New Zealand to pursue similar legislation.

The original article contains 406 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

They threaten to do this every time... And so like whatever, there are other news aggregators.

They did this in Canada… it’s a real pain in the ass.