After a hiatus of almost eight years, Google news (Google Noticias) is already operational in Spain after the European copyright directive was transposed into Spanish law at the end of last year by royal decree. This tool returns like this, which It can be consulted from the site news.google.es or through an application.
Starting today, and on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Google News, this service is once again available to Spanish readers at news.google.es on the desktop or on the mobile, or through an application for Android and IOS, according to what Google sources informed Efe on Wednesday, which have clarified that these mobile applications will still take “a few days” to appear.
“Today, on the 20th global anniversary of Google News, and after a break of almost eight years, Google News returns to Spain. This is thanks to an updated copyright law that allows Spanish media, large and small, to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to monetize it,” said Fuencisla Clemares, general director of Google in Spain and Portugal.
Clemares refers to a return that has been possible thanks to the adaptation that Spain made to its legislation of the Spanish regulations through a royal decree already in force since November 2021, but that still has to go through Parliament, where there is the possibility of modifying its articles.
With the intention that Google News Spain “help more people” find more news, from more places, and “help publishers find new readers”, They have added from the search engine, the news that readers will access come from both “websites of large media outlets and smaller, local and specialized publications.”
“Making it easier for readers to find the news they’re looking for not only benefits readers, but also helps publishers. Google News directs readers to publishers’ websites, helping drive traffic to their contentwhere they can display advertisements and encourage readers to subscribe,” said the CEO.
As he also added, news consumption in Spain has fallen since Google News was closed in 2014and this led to a 10% reduction in traffic to Spanish publishers’ websites, with the “largest impact on smaller publishers”.
How does GoogleNews work?
Some of the most outstanding aspects of this comeback is the division into various sections such as ‘Outstanding News’, a section that starts with ‘Reader’s Digest’, with the aim of updating you on the most important news since your last visit.
Also has with the ‘Local News’ section, where readers can follow the news of various cities in their country directly from the ‘News Summary’.
Also, although not yet underway, the reader will have the ‘data verification’ servicewith the aim of “helping the public distinguish between fact and fiction”.
Among other novelties, Google News proposes another section for create a section with the topics that each user chooses and thus personalize the experience. These news can be grouped into sections of interest, such as ‘World News’, ‘Business’, ‘Entertainment’ or ‘Sports’.
What about news generators?
In this sense, according to Google Spain, all publishers that comply with their information content policies may appear in Google News and other news aggregators.
“Publishers do not need to submit their website to us to appear in the aggregator. Our systems automatically identify new high-quality information websites, and we are constantly working to introduce improvements”, explained Clemares.
Thus, in addition to bringing Google News back to Spain, it is going to “work” with the Spanish media to reach agreements and launch Google News Showcase, a licensed product program, which brings a new experience and “pays publishers to create curated content for Google News and Discover story boards.”
In this way, they have nuanced from the technological giant, both readers and generators of information benefit from Google News.
“We trust that the return of Google News to Spain will help many more people find the news they are looking forfrom diverse and reliable sources of all sizes, inside and outside of Spain, and provide even more support for the journalists and editors who work tirelessly to tell us what’s going on,” concluded Clemares.
Source: Lasexta
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
