The News/Media Alliance, a professional journalism organization and advocacy group, called on federal officials Tuesday to investigate Google after the tech giant said it would limit links to California media outlets in its research results.
The alliance, which represents publishers in the news and magazine industries, said Google’s actions appear “to be either coercive or retaliatory, motivated by Google’s opposition to legislative action pending in Sacramento “.
The proposed state measure in question, called the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), would require technology companies, including Google, that sell advertising alongside news content, to pay news publishers.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, News/Media Alliance CEO Danielle Coffey called on regulators to “investigate whether Google is violating federal law by blocking or impeding its ability to to find information on which he relies for his activity. their prosperity, their pleasure, their democracy and, sometimes, their lives.
The Los Angeles Times is a member of the News/Media Alliance.
Google called the claims in the News/Media Alliance letter “baseless” and the CJPA an “unworkable” bill that harms “small, local publishers for the benefit of large out-of-state hedge funds.”
“We have proposed reasonable alternatives to the CJPA that would increase our support for California’s information ecosystem and support Californians’ access to information,” Google said in a statement. “We have long said that the CJPA is not the right approach, and we have taken responsible and transparent action to prepare for its possible implementation. »
The FTC and the Justice Department declined to comment.
Google said Friday it would begin testing limiting some users’ access to California media links and raised concerns in a blog post about the bill, saying it would change its business model .
“We’ve been saying for a long time that this is not a good approach to supporting journalism,” Jaffer Zaidi, Google’s vice president of global news partnerships, wrote in a blog post Friday. “If passed, the CJPA could result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers.”
Google did not respond to questions about the number of users who would be affected by the test, nor which California media outlets would be affected.
California news organizations say they are facing declining revenues, in part because of a digital advertising market dominated by players like Google, and are struggling to build their base. digital subscribers. Many media outlets, including the LA Times, Business Insider and Vice, have laid off staff to cut costs.
Under the bill, media outlets would return at least 70 percent of the money earned through the legislation to their staff. Smaller outlets might pay a lower percentage.
Google said it had partnered with more than 7,000 global news publishers through its Google News initiative, including 6,000 journalists in California, but Zaidi said the company was pausing expansion of that initiative “until the “California’s regulatory environment is clear.”
At a briefing event with visiting Norwegian officials Tuesday in the Bay Area, a reporter asked Gov. Gavin Newsom if he had a response to Google’s removal of California news links.
“How can I best say this?” » said Newsom. “We are in conversation with the company you mentioned. Let’s stay there.
Newsom has not yet taken a position on the California Journalism Preservation Act. It’s common for the governor to refrain from publicly sharing his position on a bill before it reaches his desk, although he has made some exceptions. A spokesperson for the governor said Newsom was talking with lawmakers about the bill.
“He continues to have constructive conversations on this important topic with the Legislature,” said Izzy Gordon, a spokeswoman for the governor.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who introduced Assembly Bill 886, met with Newsom’s staff last week and “had a very constructive conversation about AB 886” , said Erin Ivie, a spokesperson for Wicks.
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