News Corp has announced that Google has agreed to sign a three-year deal with the company in exchange for contents from its news sites all over the world. The exact financial terms behind the deal were not revealed but News Corp has stated that it will receive “significant payments” from Google.
According to the press release from News Corp, among its publications that are coming to Google News Showcase as the result of this deal includes The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post from the US together with The Times & The Sunday Times and The Sun from the UK. The Australian and Sky News is part of the deal too.
Meanwhile, the new deal does not only involve content access. News Corp stated that there will also be the development of a subscription platform as well as audio journalism, investments in video journalism by YouTube, and ad revenue sharing.
The announcement is certainly an interesting development for Google who has been facing pressure from the Australian government regarding an upcoming law that requires the search engine giant to pay media companies for the contents that appear on Google’s sites. In fact, it actually got to the point where Google is already looking to pull out Google Search from Australia in its attempt to ease the pressure.
However, signs of Google bowing down to the pressure have begun to appear earlier this month when it signed a paid deal with several Australian media houses including Nine Entertainment, and Seven West Media. So, given these deals, it seems that users in Australia will most probably be able to continue using Google Search for the foreseeable future.
(Source: News Corp. Image: The Pancake of Heaven! / Wikimedia Commons – used under Creative Commons licence.)
