What makes news sites so special that they, unlike every other website, get to charge Google when they are indexed, and more shockingly, that they can compel Google to index them?
Or to put it differently, we need more WSJ and NYT, less Breitbart and Buzzfeed.
This is pure regulatory capture from media corporations.
The problem is that they were going beyond indexing: they were lifting content from the article wholesale and embedding it into search results (without permission).
They do this with all sorts of other stuff too, news sites aren't the only ones who get irritated by it.
Yes, but your full quoted text further explains that even just linking the headlines _without_ the snippets was still not in compliance.
We have 30+ years of the world wide web being built on referred url links (no snippets) without monetary payment but now French news organizations want compensation for it. I don't understand that logic. They get extra visibility + traffic clicks from Google but also want to be paid for it?!?
If after a Apple WWDC event, the front page of HN is filled with url links to Apple press releases and announcements, it doesn't mean HN should pay money to Apple Inc to send eyeballs to "apple.com". Linking to other urls (for free) is how the web works.
IMO, removing the embedded snippets should have been enough.
How is this not straight up copyright infringement? Or have the sites agreed to it and are now just being whiny babies?
From your quote:
> brief excerpts