Google Feels That News Publishers Don't Understand ...

A few weeks ago newspaper and magazine publishers signed a declaration to limit access to their website content. The declaration stated that "universal access to websites does not necessarily mean access at no cost," and they "no longer wish to be forced to give away property without having granted permission."

Google was appalled by this declaration, as this is how things stand today. All content producers (included news and magazine publishers) are in complete control when it comes not only to what content they make available on the web, but also who can access it and at what cost.

Many developers around the world use a technical standard known as Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) to tell search engines whether or not their sites, or parts of their sites, can be crawled. In reality, with little more than one or two lines of code, content can be blocked from search engines.

News publishers need to see the bigger picture and use the web as a business opportunity to increase online readership, and make money from advertisements or online subscriptions.

The playing field has definitely changed for news publishers - and they do not like this new game. They must learn how to embrace and understand this new media arena in order to be successful going into the future.

This blog post takes excerpts from this Google Public Policy Blog.