Ellafan wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:38 pm
The simple answer to your question is that google's usefulness is based on it linking copyrighted material including news, images, and the like to attract hits. The linking includes excerpts of the written pieces, image reproductions and the like. It is using the hit rates to sell advertising*. This is a breach of IP (copyright) laws - economic exploitation of someone elses' expression of information (or images) for monetary gain, without permission. Additionally, they are collecting your online history data, and using it to earn profit.
*Personally, I use Adguard to block the adds, and Avast security's tracker blocking to maintain control of my data.
Sorry for the delay in responding but what you are saying is wrong wrt Google's search ad revenue. Google doesn't make money from news in search. Its strategy is to drive traffic to news publishers for free. The publishers theb have Google ads. In this way both Google and the news publisher make money.
I'd like to understand how this is exploitative.
(Bar using your browser history to show you relevant ads or relevant free news headlines)
There is also a newish area of Google News where subscriptions can be set up and shared across paywalls. I believe that that is an area that Google is hoping to grow but it's still pretty small, revenue-wise.
Wrt the recent Australia news deal it's hard to judge how much is commercially viable long term and how much is a payoff considering the worldwide regulation implications so its hard to judge those.