That’s not at all evil. /s
Hardly. The lesser evil perhaps, but in any context that includes Google there’s never a doubt who’s actually the bigger culprit.
In this case, it includes anyone referencing any publications. Like this post right here.
If publishers had their way, then lemmy.ml, and kbin, and you, and me, and all the instances on the Fediverse making an “unauthorized copy” of any part of the content, would have to pay.
The firm launched this project after European publishers demanded more information about the traffic brought to their websites by Google search as part of the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive.
For the full context:
- Publishers want to force Google to pay them for “copying” their news into the search engine.
- Google claims publishers would die of starvation without Google.
- In countries where such forced royalties were implemented, Google simply delisted everyone… until publishers came back crying about lost visits.
And nothing of that has anything to do with blocking the union’s website besides Google’s sheer incompetence.
First, they have a news section, making them a publisher:
https://journalistforbundet.dk/nyheder
Second, the union is:
for people who work in journalism, media and communications
https://journalistforbundet.dk/dj-english
That also includes publishers.
Google did what they were asked for. With malicious compliance, but what they were asked for. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes 🤷
If I’m understanding correctly, that sounds like what Canada did recently and Google did eventually come to an agreement with the government
Canada, Australia, Germany, Denmark… Same thing happened in Spain in 2014 already:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Newspaper_Publishers'_Association
Google cut out all Spanish news sources in 2014, until they came back crying in 2022:
