Industry body says Google ‘missed the point’ in defending its relationship with publishers
Earlier this week Google Australia MD Mel Silva compared the tech giant to a newsagency in its ability to drive audiences to news content, but Peter Miller, CEO of industry body News Media Works says the analogy completely missed the point.
“While both newsagents and Google have built their businesses off the back of news, only newsagents pay for the publications and content they distribute,” said Miller.
Miller said Google has ‘missed the point’ in its rebuttle
I think Peter missed the point here if he thinks that Google makes it’s money off the back of news. Google didn’t build their business off the back of news. News is only a very small part of their search business, and not a part that really makes money. That’s the point i think Mel was trying to get across. Simply put, Google makes money from commercial queries, ie people looking for insurance, not news queries. Unless Peter is suggesting that people wouldn’t use google to look for insurance, credit cards other assorted goods and services if news wasn’t on there?
There’s one way to find out. pull all the news off google and see what happens.
I think you will find that it is the VALUE of the ad positioning and the frequency of usage that counts.
For example, I look at the news most days. I look at insurance a couple of times each year.