Why does Germany exploit Google News Showcase
In Germany, the competition authority is investigating Google's News Showcase, the platform with which the US giant pays the media for a selection of content
There is no two without three for Google in Germany.
The Bundeskartellamt, the German competition authority, has announced a third case against Big G. This time the target is News Showcase, the product developed by Google to negotiate deals with the media on remuneration for news. ( Here the in-depth analysis by Start on the Google initiative for publishers ).
In response, Google said its Showcase product, launched last fall, represents one of the many ways it has supported journalism so far.
The case is the second to be opened against Google in a matter of days. Last week, the German antitrust opened an investigation on Google Germany, Google Ireland and their parent company Alphabet for alleged abuse of market dominance.
All the details.
THE ANTITRUST SURVEY IN GERMANY ON GOOGLE NEWS SHOWCASE
The Bonn-based antitrust will examine whether the announced integration of the Google News Showcase service into Google's general search function “could constitute self-preference or an impediment to services offered by competing third parties”.
"However, it must be ensured that this does not lead to discrimination between individual publishers", reads the note released by the authority. "Nor should Google's strong position in accessing end customers lead to a crowding-out of competing offerings from publishers or other news providers."
THE INVESTIGATION STARTED BY CORIN MEDIA'S COMPLAINT
The investigation starts from the complaint of the Corint Media association. The latter “counts among its shareholders the Springer group and ProSiebenSat.1, whose main shareholder is the Italian Mediaset “, as MF / Milano Finanza underline.
THE BIG G INITIATIVE FOR EDITORS
Last year, Google began closing content licensing deals with publishers around the world for News Showcase, announcing a $ 1 billion investment to fund the deals. The German market was one of the first markets to participate in the initiative.
Google launched the News Showcase in Germany on October 1, 2020, with the initial participation of 20 publishing companies, covering 50 publications, including German newspapers Stern , Die Zeit and Der Spiegel . German publishers were involved in a years-long lawsuit over copyright charges related to how their content is reused on the Google platform.
Since then, other publishers have been added to the Big G program in countries such as France and Italy .
THE GOOGLE REPLY
“Showcase is an international news licensing program: partner selection is based on objective and non-discriminatory criteria and partner content is not favored in our rankings,” said Google spokeswoman Kay Oberbeck. He added that the Mountain View giant will collaborate with the investigation of the German authority.
THE HOLD OF THE GERMAN REGULATOR
The German regulator has made use of enhanced powers – granted under recent reforms of German competition laws – to also investigate Facebook and Amazon about their data practices.
THE THIRD PROCEDURE IN PROGRESS
The German regulator's review of Google News Showcase closely follows two other lawsuits against Google it opened last month, one to determine whether the tech giant falls within the threshold of Germany's new competition powers to face power. of Big Tech and another for alleged abuse of market dominance. Both remain ongoing.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/perche-la-germania-sfruculia-google-news-showcase/ on Tue, 08 Jun 2021 04:38:35 +0000.