Google Signs News Deals with Italian Publishers

Google Signs News Deals with Italian Publishers

Google signs news deals with Italian publishers to offer access to some of its content on the Showcase News Platform of the US. It is a global product to give payments to news publishers for their content that are on Google. It is also a new service that allows publishers to create content and provide limited access to users. The U.S. tech group i.e Google Showcase has done similar deals with other news outlets around the world that includes media outlets in Germany, Brazil and the UK. Google Showcase platform is expected to launch in Italy in the next month, according to the media representative for Google in Italy. Although no financial details of deals were disclosed.

News publishers around the world have fought with the world’s most popular internet search engine for funding and for using their content with European media giants. Google announced in October that it planned to fund $1 billion to publishers globally for their news over the next three years through Showcase. The launching countries include Germany, Belgium, India, the Netherlands and then other countries.

Google’s agreements were signed with the following Italian publishers:

• RCS Mediagroup
• Popular sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport, and
• Caltagirone editore, which owns paper Il Messaggero.

Google signs news deals with Italian publisher for Showcase:

The agreement involves 13 Italian editorial companies. The deal gives Google Showcase users access to content from 76 national and local papers of Italy.

"We are pleased to have reached this agreement which, by also regulating the issue of related rights, recognises the importance of quality information and the authority of our publications," RCS Chief Executive Urbano Cairo said in a statement. RCS said the deal with Google also included the Spanish-language papers owned by the group - El Mundo, Marca and Expansion.

The agreement could potentially give the way for a revival of the U.S. Company’s news service in Spain. The news company was shut down in 2014 in response to legislation. The legislation was about paying publishers a license fee to re-publish headlines or news. Unfortunately, both Italy and Spain still have to implement the new EU rules, unlike other EU countries. Moreover, authorities around the world have been introducing rules for making sure to Google, Facebook and others to share revenue with the publishers.