Google News re-opens in Spain after eight-year shutdown

Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., re-opened Google News in Spain on Wednesday. The company had shut down the service eight years ago in the country. According to a report by Reuters, Google had left the country as the Spanish government forced news aggregators to pay the publishers for using their snippets.

However, in the ruling passed by the Spanish Government in 2020, companies have been allowed to negotiate directly with Google. This is similar to the European Union copyright rules.

Fuencisla Clemares, vice president for Iberia, said in a blog post, “Today, on the global 20th anniversary of Google News, and after an almost eight-year hiatus, Google News is returning to Spain.”

The company has also planned to launch Google News Showcase as soon as possible in Spain, she said. Showcase is the firm’s vehicle for paying news publishers.

“This is thanks to an updated copyright law allowing Spanish media outlets – big and small – to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to monetise that content,” Clemares added.