California publishers have called for state and local officials to investigate Google after the search engine began cutting links to news websites to test the impact of a statewide “link tax” sought by the publishing industry.
The California News Publishers Association sent letters to Atty. Gen. Ron Bonta, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday demanding an investigation. The California group was joined by the News/Media Alliance, a national organization.
“Google’s unilateral decision to turn off access to news websites for Californians could violate California laws,” the organizations warned, arguing that Californians “have a compelling interest in freely accessing digital news.”
However, the newspaper industry here and in other countries has long claimed that Google steals news by showing a few lines in search and then linking to an article, and has repeatedly sought government help to impose fees on the search giant.
In California, Assembly Bill 886, the so-called California Journalism Preservation Act, would require Google, Facebook and Microsoft to pay a “journalism usage fee” whenever they send the public to newspaper, TV and other news sites via search. The exact language is in flux, but essentially the money would be allocated based on a publication’s share of total links.
Google announced Friday it was testing the removal of links to California news, saying that while it believes online search helps the news industry, a tax on links is unworkable.
“By helping people find news stories, we help publishers of all sizes grow their audiences at no cost to them. CJPA would up-end that model,” the company said in its official blog. “As we’ve shared when other countries have considered similar proposals, the uncapped financial exposure created by CJPA would be unworkable.”
In response, in the letter to Bonta, the news industry claimed Google has “brazenly sought to impose its will on this state.”
AB 886 would potentially benefit newspapers, TV stations and independent online publishers, including Times of San Diego, which nevertheless has publicly opposed the measure as favoring legacy businesses and discriminating against startups.