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Business News/ News / Google to Launch Long-Delayed News Showcase Product in U.S. This Summer
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Google to Launch Long-Delayed News Showcase Product in U.S. This Summer

wsj

Company will pay over 150 U.S. news publications to feature their content

FILE - In this April 17, 2007 file photo, exhibitors work on laptop computers in front of an illuminated sign of the Google logo at the industrial fair Hannover Messe in Hanover, Germany. The European Union is pushing online platforms like Google and Meta to step up the fight against false information by adding labels to text, photos and other content generated by artificial intelligence, EU Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said Monday. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer, File) (AP)Premium
FILE - In this April 17, 2007 file photo, exhibitors work on laptop computers in front of an illuminated sign of the Google logo at the industrial fair Hannover Messe in Hanover, Germany. The European Union is pushing online platforms like Google and Meta to step up the fight against false information by adding labels to text, photos and other content generated by artificial intelligence, EU Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said Monday. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer, File) (AP)

Google said a long-delayed product that pays news publishers to feature their content would launch in the U.S. this summer, part of what the company said is an effort to support media outlets.

The coming debut of the product, called Google News Showcase, comes as various countries around the world have passed or are considering legislation to help publishers get payments from technology companies—including Google and Facebook parent Meta Platforms—for featuring their content.

Showcase was announced in 2020 and has since been introduced in more than 20 countries, but had yet to debut in the U.S. amid stalled efforts to negotiate with some publishers.

The company, a unit of Alphabet, said Showcase would feature more than 150 U.S. news publications, including local outlets such as the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota and Orlando Weekly in Florida, as well as larger new outlets such as the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.

Google didn’t say how much money U.S. publishers were being paid as part of the partnership.

Google has faced criticism in recent years from executives at major news organizations—including Wall Street Journal parent News Corp—for using news content in its products without paying the publishers that provide it.

News Corp reached a global multiyear deal with Google in 2021. The media company said the deal and other tech tie-ups would generate a combined annual revenue of more than $100 million, the Journal previously reported. Beyond the Journal, News Corp owns news organizations in Australia and the U.K., as well as Barron’s, MarketWatch and the New York Post in the U.S.

The New York Times recently signed a deal with Google, including Showcase, that will pay it around $100 million a year over three years, the Journal reported.

The rise of Google and Facebook as digital-advertising behemoths has had a significant impact on the media industry, leaving publishers grappling with increased competition for ad revenue and attention. Both Google and Meta have explored ways to compensate publishers, and Showcase is part of that effort.

Meta years ago started paying publishers to include story summaries in its Facebook News tab, a feature it launched in 2019. But last year, the company told publishers it wouldn’t renew contracts to feature their content on the product, part of an effort to reallocate resources to focus more on the creator economy.

Separately, Meta last week threatened to pull news from its sites in California if the state passes a law requiring technology platforms to pay publishers, the latest in a series of warnings from the company as various governments consider similar legislation.

Google on Thursday also said it plans to continue to provide funding to Google News Initiative, a program through which it invests in local news organizations, but declined to say how much money it is planning to invest as part of that effort.

The company is also rebranding and updating a tool that lets users purchase news subscriptions through their Google account.

Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com

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