Spain's government has implemented a Google Tax on Google News and Google on Dec 16th will be shutting down its news.google.es site.
“But sadly, as a result of a new Spanish law, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable. So it’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain.”
Media like the Washington Post cover the news of Google News shutting down.
“Earlier this year, Spain passed a rather egregious amendment to its copyright law (to take effect in the New Year), purportedly as some kind of anti-piracy move, but more aptly called the “Google tax” by some observers. The law gives Internet publishers a right to compensation for the use of “snippets” of their content by news aggregator sites (like Google News). And not just a right to compensation: an inalienable right to compensation, one that publishers cannot waive or bargain away (in return, say, for being included in the new aggregator listings).”
Out of curiosity I looked up what % of the spanish speaking population is in Spain. 11%. Mexico has over twice the spanish speaking population than Spain and could take up the slack of Spanish news that disappears from Google News. Columbia and Argentina are close to Spain.
So it is quite possible that Spain disappearing from Google News will be something that will be a non event to most and the biggest impact is in Spain. Seems like it would be easy for Spain users who want to still use Google News in Spanish to switch from news.google.es to something like Mexico http://news.google.com.mx/
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Mexico De facto[3] 120,286,655 Academia Mexicana de la Lengua Mexican Spanish
Spain De jure[4] 47,737,941 Real Academia Española Peninsular Spanish
Colombia De jure[5] 46,245,297 Academia Colombiana de la Lengua Colombian Spanish
Argentina De facto[6] 43,024,374 Academia Argentina de Letras Rioplatense Spanish
Peru De jure[7] 30,147,935 Academia Peruana de la Lengua Peruvian Coast Spanish
Venezuela De jure[8] 28,868,486 Academia Venezolana de la Lengua Venezuelan Spanish
Chile De facto[9] 17,363,894 Academia Chilena de la Lengua Chilean Spanish
Ecuador De jure[10] 15,654,411 Academia Ecuatoriana de la Lengua Ecuadorian Spanish
Guatemala De jure[11] 14,647,083 Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua Guatemalan Spanish
Cuba De jure[12] 11,047,251 Academia Cubana de la Lengua Cuban Spanish”