Publishers launch global initiative to tackle Google

by Staff, Brand Republic 25-Sep-06, 08:30

LONDON - Publishers have launched a scheme to retain greater control over their content and stop search engines, including Google, from reaping financial rewards at their expense.

The initiative has been launched by European Publishers Council and is backed by International Publishers Association, the European Newspapers Association and the World Association of Newspapers.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, the scheme will take steps to stop search engines freely offering the content, which the publishing companies are investing heavily in to create. It also hopes to remove any rights conflicts between publishers and search engines, which make huge profits on the back of other people's content.

The scheme will include the creation of new software tags, which will tell search engines crawling the web exactly under what conditions content can be used. Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers Council, told the paper that it would no longer be possible for search engines to claim ignorance of usage conditions attached to material.

The new software tagging system or Automated Content Access Protocol will allow individual publishers to set their own terms and conditions depending on their particularly business model.

The plan follows another setback for Google last week after a Belgian court ruled that it should stop publishing stories by French-language newspapers or face fines of €1m (£675,000) for every day the content stays live.

The complaint against Google was lodged by Copiepresse, a company that handles the copyright for the Belgian French- and German-language press.

The court ruled that Google's publishing of newspaper content online contravened copyright laws. Google and other search engines, such as Yahoo! and MSN, point out that, while content is available on their search sites, they drive traffic to online newspapers, which in turn helps publishers attract advertising.

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