Google removes links to California news sites, citing proposed state law requiring payment to publishers

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Google is removing links to California news websites in reaction to proposed state legislation requiring big tech companies to pay news outlets for their content, the company announced Friday in a blog post.

Google, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet (GOOGL), wrote the move would affect only a small percentage of California users, and is intended as a “test,” allowing the company to gauge “the impact of the legislation on our product experience.”

The bill comes as more people have shifted away from finding and consuming news though traditional media and toward social and online platforms. The legislation was introduced amid fears the companies’ news aggregation practices will siphon users away from news websites, which have sounded the alarm about how platforms have gained increasingly unfettered control over the content they allow users to see.

hmmmm