The Spanish Newspaper Publishers’ Association (AEDE) has requested that the European Commission and the Spanish government intervene to stop Google News’ closure in the country.
The AEDE reached out to the EU Commision and government officials to negotiate with Google earlier this week to according to the Spain Report, after a tax was implemented to charge the firm for its use of the publishers’ news.
However, rather than pay the levies, Google decided to drop its news service in a move which the AEDE said “will undoubtedly have a negative impact on citizens and Spanish businesses”.
It added: “Given the dominant position of Google, AEDE requires the intervention of Spanish and community authorities, and competition authorities, to effectively protect the rights of citizens and companies.”
The AEDE, which was complicit in creating the law which charges Google for every news story it aggregates on its ‘News’ page, said it wants to negotiate with the US company over its exit from Spain. It added that it had been in discussions with the country’s leading publishers.
Google News operates as a non-profit site and as a result will ditch the service on Tuesday 16 December.
The search giant has said it is “incredibly sad” to pull our service of Spain, adding that in light of the new demands that it pay to run content, would be unustainable for it to continue.
