Europe mulls tax on Google for displaying news articles

A war is brewing in Brussels over an eu reform plan that might pressure internet aggregators consisting of Google information to pay newspapers for displaying snippets in their articles on-line.
Google is furious at the idea, however publishers, which includes Axel Springer or Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, confirm that a tax is the simplest wish to save a news industry ravenous for sales. The combat is the latest row among Google and eu, which slapped the firm with a $2.eight billion first-rate over unfair opposition in June.
The proliferation of free news on the internet has delivered the newspaper industry to its knees, with many customers unwilling to pay for on-line provider, preferring  fee structures along with Google news or fb. “Unauthorised internet use of media content” with the aid of aggregators and serps “is threatening residents’ sustainable get right of entry to to information content material,” said european Alliance of news businesses. “it is essential that neighbouring rights be created for news companies, protecting all activity at the web.”
The “snippet tax” idea is handiest one in all several additives of a prime european draft law supposed to replace ecu copyright regulation. Approval will require a special eu majority that have to account for sixty five percent of the bloc’s population and no longer solely a majority of member states.