This is terrible. So Google is trying to get out of the monopoly accusations by bribing the mainstream media. They will make a deal and Google will get its monopole, and the media too.<p>I don't know if anyone here heard about the "Google tax" in Spain [1], but here are my worst fears: Google will consolidate its monopole, and the mainstream press too.<p>Here's how it went in Spain. One could go to Google News to get a glance of the news. One could find mainstream press there, international or otherwise, alongside with independent media and bloggers.<p>So the government in Spain (or, actually, the media lobby?) creates a law tailored to tax Google, and Google just cancels the service. How did that turn out?<p>People go now directly to the mainstream media sites, and independent media are now completely out of the game. Mainstream papers lost some readers, but made the competency almost invisible in the process.<p>If this trend goes on, and Google and the mainstream media make "peace deals", it means the same big players as always will get a monopoly on Google services, while Google will secure popular contents for their own services (Google News, Android News widgets, and so on).<p>We all lose in media plurality and independence. In the future we will be worse informed.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_tax" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_tax</a>
Note that Murdoch is listed as not participating in this.<p>News barely makes any money. The only people that have made it pay directly are low-latency financial services: Thompson-Reuters and Bloomberg.<p>This makes it absolutely rife with people buying their way to influence. Rupert Murdoch is the big example, but the Telegraph is currently imploding under this pressure as well (owned by Barclay brothers, cancelling articles unfavourable to HSBC).
to be fair, this seems a still tiny selection, i.e. Les Echos (FR), FAZ & Die Zeit (DE), Financial Times&The Guardian (UK), NRC Media (NL), El Pais (ES), La Stampa (IT).<p>As long as this is not an exclusive/restrictive agreement I don't think it's bad.
Well, at least that kills any argument of Google just being an unbiased aggregator.<p>Bloody hell, there have been military coups that have tried to take control of the media in more subtle ways than this...