French news papers asking Google to pay for linking to their content.

[Herodes]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/30/google-pay-french-newspapers

Isn't this completely backwards? I mean, what would google lose (if anything), if they just blocked all french news papers from google search results ? Would it not be a much bigger problem for the news papers?

How can a rational person argue that google should  pay for indexing french news papers ? It seems to me it's just a desperate attempt to bring in money to the news papers, which probably are struggling already.

Google are a search engine and brings traffic to these news papers, so to me, it seems like these newspapers are simply shooting themselves in the foot.

[SgtSpike]

I don't think you'll find any argument here.  There is nothing logical about this request.

[sukiho]

google used to be a search engine, now a lot of the search results are paid ads

[SgtSpike]

google used to be a search engine, now a lot of the search results are paid ads

Yes, but this is the other way around.

"In Soviet France, ads pay for you."

[cedivad]

It's a sort of fiat vs bitcoin. Fiat thinks to be shiny and better than bitcoin, truth is that there is a growing number of guys thinking the opposite. Newspapers cannot understand why their secolar business is going down in just under a decade, and push the governments to help them.

Google will simply cut them off if they don't find any good agreement google side.

[caffeinewriter]

Why don't they go the logical route and accept payment in... Oh I don't know... TRAFFIC?

[Raoul Duke]

They can just use

Code:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

Or

Code:

<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">

And problem solved...

[C10H15N]

That doesn't cut a check.   

[underminer]

I've noticed google results are recently 100% more annoying.  Loose synonyms and bairly similar acronyms are listed in the results.  A search for something specific gets corrupted really fast when "tmi" becomes "tmz" and unrelated content clutters the results.  Maybe it's a resistance move by the French, I'm now dependent on an annoying search engine...

[dunand]

They can just use

Code:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

Or

Code:

<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">

And problem solved...

No they want the butter and the money for the butter. They want users to be directed at them but they also want money for this.   

[Phinnaeus Gage]

They can just use

Code:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

Or

Code:

<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">

And problem solved...

Solves one problem, but creates a bigger one. What company would advertise on a newspaper's website when its content won't be indexed/searchable via Google?

[malevolent]

I don't think you'll find any argument here.  There is nothing logical about this request.

Sure there is. They are French. 
(no offense to all of you normal Frenchies out there )

[k3t3r]

not just a niche this would be a cavernous void in the market for someone.

[Herodes]

I LOL'ed so hard!