Spanish publishers want Google News to come back
Spain's old-school media clearly has a more complicated relationship with the internet than it first thought. Mere hours after Google shut down its News service in the country to avoid a law that will make it pay for article results, the Spanish Newspaper Publishers' Association (AEDE) is asking for the government to make Google come back. They claim that Google is too "dominant" in the market to simply leave, and that its absence will "undoubtedly have a negative impact" on both businesses and the public. AEDE insists that it's willing to negotiate to keep News around, but it believes that Google refuses to take a "neutral stance."
The request might be optimistic. Effectively, the publishers hope to have their cake and eat it too -- they want Google News to return and bring them visitors, but they also want Google to stay under terms it doesn't like. As it stands, AEDE acknowledges that Google is "free" to close shop without intervention. Unless newspapers get the support they're looking for, they may have to either walk away from the legislation they like or accept the new status quo.
[Image credit: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images]
