Do online publishers really need protection from Google? The outlook for ACAP

Posted by Ben Compaine

Publishers are organizing to stake a larger claim to the revenue now being garnered by the search engines, particularly Google. Two weeks ago a consortium of primarily EU-based publishing associations lead by the World Association of Newspapers announced a venture called Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), through which the providers of content published on the world wide web would be capable of communicating permissions information (relating to access and use of their content) in a form that can be readily recognized and interpreted by a search engine “crawler”, so that the search engine operator is enabled systematically to comply with such a policy or license. The full ACAP briefing paper is here.

A recent article by the Society for Computer and Law reviews the legal status of Google’s tools that provide web users with links to online content. For the most part courts have ruled that Google (and therefore other search engines) are not violating copyright by providing links to the pages of publishers. Last month, however, a Belgian court did rule that Google News (as opposed to Google’s basic search)was acting as an information portal (that is, like a publisher) rather than a mere search engine. The SCL article summarized the publisher arguments that court considered:

It causes the newspaper publishers to lose control of their Web sites and their content. While Google News links to an article on the newspaper publishers’ servers, once the publishers removes the article it still remains accessible on Google News via the link to the Google cache.The appearance of automatically generated headlines on Google News means that users may avoid or by-pass the newspaper sites, resulting in a reduction of traffic and therefore loss of advertising revenue to the publishers.

 Google News ‘short-circuits’ other protections for the publisher such as copyright notices and terms of use. Access to the newspaper articles and other material via Google’s cache results in other missed opportunities for the newspaper, including reader registration and re-distribution rights. Someone please help me understand, Where’s the beef? How does the publisher lose control of its Web site?

For example, at 11:04 am EDT on Oct. 18 Google News’ top link was:

The axis of anxiety

Belfast Telegraph - 1 hour ago

North Korea is the newest and least predictable member of the most dangerous club in the world. By David Usborne and Raymond Whitaker.

 Belfast Telegraph been robbed of possible traffic because thousands of users saw that? And how many of those who clicked through to the article would otherwise have the Belfast Telegraph as their usual source of online  news? On the other hand, how many of those who clicked were exposed to the ad promoting “Online Monopoly”, an ad I for one have never seen elsewhere and was intrigued enough to click on.

Less than an hour latter, the lead had become:

Rice seeks to temper fears of Asian arms raceSwissinfo - 2 hours ago

By Sue Pleming and Chisa Fujioka. TOKYO (Reuters) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reassured Japan on Wednesday that Washington would stand by a commitment to protect its Asian ally, trying to temper ...

Was the Belfast News, or any other pubisher in that listing, being taken advantage of by being in the Google spotlight for 30 or 40 minutes?

And then its on and on about Google’s “cache” (sounds like “cash”, which, of course, is what this is all about). An article at Google News this morning headlined “Reuters offloads Factiva stake for $160m.” It was freely available if I chose the Times Online (London), but when I clicked on The Wall Street Journal’s link, I found only the first 50 words or so of the story and was told I needed to be a subscriber to see the whole thing.

Where’s the beef?

When I searched Google’s archive for articles mentioning HP CEO Mark Hurd and the recent controversy about investigating the HP Board, I received dozens of hits. But when I tried to view “Dunn Departs HP Board,” from Pensions & Investments Online Sept. 22, I was confronted with a screen that said I needed to register and sign-in before getting access.

ACAP: Will it Work?

In the ACAP project, the publishers have gone out of their way not to paint their effort as a way to get back at the search engines. They are, indeed, trying to make this out to be a “win-win” proposition, describing their plan as “a new and exciting scheme that aims to improve the relationship between publishers and search engines….” They continue, “Via ACAP, we look forward to fostering mutually beneficial relationships between publishers of original content and the search engine operators, in which the interests of both parties can be properly balanced.” The search engines folks should embrace ACAP because “More content will be searchable: ACAP will give content owners the confidence to allow search engines to index their content under clear terms of use.”

In practical terms, ACAP is a solution in search of a problem. I’m certain the overwhelming number of publishers today get far more benefit from being crawled and displayed by the search engines than any minor harm. They get hits from audiences far greater than they would get sans search engines. (I wish I knew of some solid research that would confirm this, but it’s so evident on its face that I’m willing to make this assertion.). More hits can only lead to great value for advertisers, more registered users, and, in a few cases, and even subscription revenue. Content providers already have the option of-opt out from Google, they can already control access to the bulk of their content through registration and subscription requirements.

The outlook for the successful widespread implementation of an ACAP-like system primarily depends on whether Google really sees anything of value in it. If Google, MSN and others choose not to modify their crawlers and spiders, whatever, to interpret the code that ACAP will provide publishers, the latter will be left with the choice of either opting out altogether or using current tools. There are only a handful of publishers worldwide that might even entertain the fiction that they would be better off without the search engines even as now functioning.

There are precious few example—I can think of none—where top-down implementation has succeeded on the Internet. The Internet itself-- though initially developed with US government funding-- grew very much organically, as did the World Wide Web. eBay was not a creation of Christy’s or Sotheby’s auction houses. Despite years of talk about micro payment systems, it was not the major financial institutions that created PayPal, the most successful new system for online payments. Downloaded music was not a creation of music publishers or record companies, but grew from the success of Napster and the initiatives of Apple. Online video has received most of its attention thanks to the success of YouTube rather than a big-bucks push from the legacy video industry. And Google itself was a garage-shop end-around the top-down effort of Digital Equipment Corp (later Compaq’s) Alta Vista search engine.

Not only is ACAP a long shot to succeed as a model, but I don’t even see how the content industry will be better off if it does.