MADRID – Google has followed through with a pledge to shut down Google News in Spain ahead of a Spanish intellectual-property law requiring news publishers to receive payment for content even if they are willing to give it away.
The company's Spanish Google News page, normally full of aggregated news content, vanished Tuesday morning.
It was replaced by a message saying Google is "incredibly sad" to announce the closure plus a lockout of Spanish publishers from its more than 70 other Google News sites around the world.
Spain's law takes effect Jan. 1 and Google said it wasn't worth it to consider paying the publishers because its popular news aggregator makes no money.
The law was pushed through by Spain's AEDE association representing large news organizations. It was nicknamed the "Google Tax."
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