14 DAY TRIAL // There's been plenty of ink spilled, so to speak, over the whole Google versus newspapers debacle yet, for the most part, the search giant has been calm and unperturbed satisfied to issue out the occasional “you can always de-index” argument. Not anymore, it seems, as Google is on an all-out offensive, though usually with a peace offering at the same time, the latest of which comes straight from the man up top, Eric Schimidt. The CEO is making a case for the company with an op-ed in the News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal of all places.
He doesn't really come out with anything new in the lengthy piece but he does go through all of the main arguments the company has been making for a while, Google doesn't really make that much from news content, it's not “stealing” the content and is actually sending news sites a lot of free traffic.
“With dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame. Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return. The facts, I believe, suggest otherwise,” Schmidt starts off by acknowledging the problems the industry is facing.
Even though he recognizes the problems of the newspaper industry, he wants to point out that Google isn't the enemy, it can be a friend. In fact, it is one of the best ways to attract new readers.
“We send online news publishers a billion clicks a month from Google News and more than three billion extra visits from our other services, such as Web Search and iGoogle. That is 100,000 opportunities a minute to win loyal readers and generate revenue - for free,” he says.
He goes on to tackle another popular issue, which he believes is misguided, the claim that Google is somehow stealing content and violating the copyright of the news outlets. This one is rather straightforward, Google only shows a small portion of the article and the headline, anyone actually wanting to read it would have to go to the site. And if even this seems like too much, publishers can always prevent Google from indexing their websites. Finally, he makes it clear that the company doesn't view news as a real revenue source, the nature of the content making it harder to sell ads against it.
“It's understandable to look to find someone else to blame. But as Rupert Murdoch has said, it is complacency caused by past monopolies, not technology, that has been the real threat to the news industry,” he adds. “We recognize, however, that a crisis for news-gathering is not just a crisis for the newspaper industry,” Schmidt says. “We also acknowledge that it has been difficult for newspapers to make money from their online content. But just as there is no single cause of the industry's current problems, there is no single solution.” The takeaway from all of this seems to be, as the company has said before, that, if anything, Google is a friend to the news industry and offers a lot of ways through which publishers can make a profit by working together.
