Google ‘has sucked cash from ads that fund news’

GOOGLE and Facebook have ‘sucked all the money’ out of the advertising which funds news, a senior executive at the Daily Mail has said, as the newspaper’s owner takes legal action against the search engine giant.

Peter Wright, editor emeritus of DMG Media, which publishes the newspaper, speaking yesterday said ‘it’s time to call this company out’ when asked about the anti-trust lawsuit which has been filed against Google in the US.

Appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Wright said the news publishing industry around the world was ‘in a state of crisis’ because of Google and Facebook’s grip on online advertising for news. He said news was vital to democracy but that providing high-quality and diverse reporting on events could not happen without the revenue to support it.

It was revealed on Tuesday that the owner of the Mail has launched a legal action against Google, alleging the company ‘manipulates’ search results to ‘punish publishers’.

The news provider this week said the lawsuit aimed to ‘hold Google to account for their continued anti- competitive behaviour’. The legal action, filed in New York by Associated Newspapers and Mail Media, also alleges that the tech giant has manipulated advertising auctions.

Google, which is already facing a legal action in America from the US Justice Department and a number of attorney generals from different US states over alleged anti- competitive practices, has dismissed the claims.

Mr Wright told the programme: ‘ We think it’s time to call this company out.

‘The news publishing industry in the United States and in Britain and in nearly every other country in the world is in a state of crisis because Google and Facebook, the other dominant player, have sucked all the money out of the advertising revenue which funds news. News is fantastically important to democracy, it’s important that it’s researched and written to a high quality and it’s important that there’s a diversity of voices.

‘That can’t happen unless revenue is there to support it and that’s why we’re doing this.’ A key part of the lawsuit is the claim that the US tech giant ‘punishes’ publishers on search rankings if they do not sell enough advertising space through Google’s own exchange.

Mr Wright pointed out on the BBC programme how in June 2019 the news provider saw its search visibility drop by 50 per cent overnight.

This is thought to be connected to the news organisation’s success in diverting advertising traffic away from Google to other rival ad exchanges which gave better revenue for ad space. Despite proving hugely popular with readers, Mr Wright said MailOnline’s stories about the royal family were getting very low prominence on the search engine. He pointed out how on Facebook, which has different algorithms from Google, the news company had its largest ever readership on the day of Meghan Markle’s Oprah interview.

But on Google, measurements showed that it was only getting between 1 and 2 per cent of UK ‘search visibility’ for Harry and Meghan stories, with similar figures for Prince Philip’s funeral.

A Google spokesman has said of the legal action: ‘The Daily Mail’s claims are completely inaccurate.

‘The use of our ad tech tools has no bearing on how a publisher’s website ranks in Google Search. More generally, we compete in a crowded and competitive ad tech space where publishers have and exercise multiple options.

‘The Daily Mail itself authorises dozens of ad tech companies to sell and manage their ad space, including Amazon, Verizon and more. We will defend ourselves against these meritless claims.’

‘Important that there’s a diversity of voices’