Italy... Has a Competition Authority?
Of all the world's ironies...
Italy's anti-trust watchdog is investigating Google's treatment of local newspapers on the Italian versions of its news site and search engine. On Thursday, as reported by Reuters, the country's competition authority announced its Google probe after a complaint from the Italian Federation of Newspaper Editors (FIEG). According …
Of all the world's ironies...
that since they are not on Google news, their click through rates have fallen through the floor and the search algorithm correctly lists them but much much further down the results?
Nah ... the Italians would never accept a rational argument like that!
Surely mentioning the man who owns the Italian media should be compulsory in an article related to Italian media?
Damn. Beat me to it :)
Maybe it just works the other way around to all other competition Authorities. Their job must be to eliminate ALL competition from the market save those controlled by Silvio "Where'd I leave my pants" Berlusconi.
Italian newspapers have websites, which have to be paid for by advertising.
Google ripping the news from their website and showing on its pages doesn't pay the italian newspaper.
But Google displaying the news as a search result, DOES encourage people to view the news and enable the italian newspapers to get paid.