Google claims news is worth nothing for its advertising activity after a test involving 1% of the search results on eight EU markets

Google has reported the results of an experience He ran, which deleted new research results for 1% of users for 2.5 months in eight markets * in Europe – claiming that the results show that the news is essentially nothing for Google’s advertising activities.

The research giant has carried out the test because the European copyright law requires that it poses new publishers to reuse extracts from their content. But how much is the news worth? Google maintains that publishers “overestimates” the value of their business to its business; According to his report on tests, the real value “could not be distinguished statistically from zero, nor by country or by country”.

Google hopes to use this result as a lever effect in payment negotiations with European publishers. But the technology giant works a delicate line, as it has already faced Fine major antitrust In France in recent years in connection with the content of the news. In particular, he was sentenced to a fine of more than half a billion dollars compared to his Approach to copyright negotiations with publishersspecifically.

The German Competition Authority composed a meticulous examination of the elements of Google’s behavior around the news – and forced the company to make changes. Thus, any Google decision to try to undermine the effect of the EU copyright law by affirming that the news was worth nothing could land it in more regulatory hot water.

Indeed, the company had initially included users in France in news ablation tests, but abandoned this part of the experience after a French court warned that it would be sentenced to a fine for having broken a prior agreement with the anti -rust authority. In particular, Google also did not perform the test in Germany.

* Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain