Google’s News Value Challenge in Europe: A Revealing Experiment

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By 24matins.uk,  published 23 March 2025 at 11h01, updated on 23 March 2025 at 11h01.
Tech

Google has disclosed that its European experiment shows news content holds no value for its advertising business.

**Google and the Value of News: A Revealing Experiment**

A Bold Experiment

Last November, Google embarked on an “experiment” across eight European countries, intentionally omitting search results from certain EU news publishers for a small fraction of users. This strategic move was not without ulterior motives. Due to European copyright laws that require payments to publishers for article excerpts, Google aimed to use the gathered data to potentially weaken the negotiating power of news publishers.

Surprising Results

The findings are now public. Google claims that news content has no significant monetary value to its business. “The data is in: European news content in search results does not measurably impact Google’s advertising revenue,” the company stated in a blog post detailing the experiment’s outcomes.

Paul Liu, Google’s economic director, noted that removing news content for 1% of users in eight European countries led to no change in advertising revenue and only a 0.8% decrease in usage, with any lost usage coming from queries that generated minimal or no revenue.

A Delicate Position

However, Google must tread carefully. As TechCrunch highlights, the company has faced antitrust fines in France over its news content practices. Germany is also increasing pressure on Google’s news licensing tactics. Notably, neither country was included in this “experiment”.

A Historical Precedent

It’s important to remember that Google has a longstanding history of using visibility withdrawal as a bargaining tool in similar scenarios. This approach was tested in Canada, California, and Australia. In the latter, despite Google’s threats to withdraw its search engine, former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated, “Let me be clear. Australia makes our rules for what you can do in Australia.” Ultimately, Google settled on licensing agreements with Australian media companies.