If we're talking about news.google.com, then yeh it's ridiculous. That site is just headline links. It's not "content", it's a list of text links.

The foundation of the web is text links. So the EU wants to charge for HTML links. Struggling to see the logic there. Users click those links, read the story content, and end up on the news website. That is the fair transaction right there, no money needed.

Unless I'm missing something? Is this about the web or app? I don't use the google app so not sure if clicking links just opens a web view in app?