Written by by Leslie Eastman at legalinsurrection.com
I appreciate the fact many Legal Insurrection fans have schedenfreude whenever I cover the inanity occurring within my current home state of California.
There has been in interesting development, in terms of the news media in this state, which may offer some additional entertainment. Google is removing links to California news websites due to proposed state legislation that will require tech firms to pay news outlets for their content.
The legislation has a hilarious title: California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA).
Google said Friday it would remove links to California news sites from its search results for some of its users, as it pushes back against a pending bill that would require the Silicon Valley technology company to pay publishers.
The online search giant said the bill, called the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), would upend its business model. The bill, if signed into law, would require companies including Google to fork over a “journalism usage fee” when they sell ads next to news content.
“We have long said that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism,” Jaffer Zaidi, vice president of Google’s Global News Partnerships, wrote in a blog post Friday. “If passed, CJPA may result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers.”
Google also said it is “pausing further investments in the California news ecosystem.”