Google has joined Meta in blocking news links on its Canadian sites, rather than pay publishers as now required by law. The company was less confrontational than Meta in their language, and probably does a better job of blocking misinformation. But the effect is still to make it harder for Canadians to receive reliable news.
The Canadian government said it’s still in discussion with Google.
How ever offended the tech giants are at the effrontery of payment demands from local news sites, blocking those sites does diminish the value provided to consumers. That’s not necessarily the best move when 77% of UK and Nordics respondents to this Precis Digital survey are already concerned about how social platforms use their data, and 57% see no benefit in sharing data with brands. Just 7% would trade more data for more relevant and personalized ads, compared with 35% who prefer no data sharing and irrelevant ads. Another 41%... Read More >
Nearly one-third of major news publishers have blocked generative AI tools from reading their content. But that’s a drastic measure which could also exclude their results from conventional search engines. Microsoft has just given publishers the option to block access by Bing Chat without also removing their content from search results. We’ll see if competitors do the same.