After Eight Years Of Absence, Now Google News Is Back In Spain

Google News is back in Spain, after eight years of absence. (photo; screenshot)

JAKARTA - Alphabet inc., re-opened Google News in Spain on Wednesday, June 22nd after eight years of shutting down their service due to Spanish rules. The regulation prohibits and compels companies and other news aggregators to pay publishers for using their news snippets.

The Madrid government last year turned the European Union's copyright rules, which were amended in 2020, into law. The law allows the media to negotiate directly with the tech giant if their news is featured on Google.

The move prompted an announcement from Google last year that it would reopen Google News the following year.

"Today, on the 20th anniversary of global Google News, and after nearly eight years of absence, Google News is back in Spain," Fuencisla Clemares, vice president for Iberia, said in a blog post.

He said the company also plans to launch its Google News Showcase, its vehicle for paying news publishers, as soon as possible in Spain.

This royalty-like payment system is indeed desired by the media and news publishers in Spain, because the internet, especially Google, has reduced their income. The same is true in almost all of the European Union.

However, until now the new regulation has not been imitated and implemented by the Indonesian government so that many media in the country have not received distribution from Google.