Google just dropped the results of one of its most questionable experiments yet — and surprise! The findings just so happen to align perfectly with its bargaining position against news publishers and regulators.
According to their report, removing news content from EU publishers in Search, Discover, and Google News for 1% of users in 8 EU countries “had no significant impact” on usage or ad revenue.
Translation? Google wants us to believe news content has no value in their ecosystem. Convenient, isn’t it — especially with the EU Copyright Directive and the press publisher’s right requiring tech platforms to negotiate and compensate publishers unless they’re using only “very short snippets.”
But here’s the thing: the experiment is flawed from top to bottom. Rather than providing transparency on the role of news in its search ecosystem, Google set its own criteria to assess the value of European journalism.
It replaced EU journalism with lower-quality sources — YouTube, or other Google ecosystem apps, Pinterest, Reddit, blogs, AI-generated content — and didn’t tell users what they were missing.
The only thing it really proves is the depth of Google’s monopoly: people didn’t switch platforms because they had no idea the quality dropped. They kept clicking, unaware.
It completely ignores what was lost — traffic, visibility, and credibility for actual publishers, but confirms Google’s dominance on advertising.
And while Google claims there was “no impact,” Discover usage dropped by almost 10%, while Google News queries rose sharply — clear signs users were looking for real news elsewhere.
But here’s the kicker: could this all be about laying the groundwork for Google’s continued AI roll-out —one that relies on ingesting journalism, without explicit consent to avoid paying for it. By claiming news adds no value, Google is building a narrative: if news isn’t valuable, why license it at all?
This isn’t a neutral experiment. It’s a strategy.
Regulators beware - Don’t be fooled by self-serving data. Don’t let monopoly power rewrite the value of journalism.