Google News abandons Spain in paid content row

Spain's government Thursday defied Google's vow to shut down its Spanish online news service in protest at being made to pay for content, in its latest legal clash in Europe.
      
The US giant said it would close Google News Spain on December 16 before an intellectual property law enters force in January obliging Internet news-gatherers to pay to reproduce content drawn from other websites.
      
The Spanish culture ministry said it would press ahead with enforcing the law and dismissed Google's announcement as "a matter for the company".
      
"Despite the suspension of Google News, access to news on the internet will still be guaranteed as it can be found via the news organisations' own websites or web searches," it said in a statement.
      
"The intellectual property reform does not obstruct freedom of information", it added.
      
Users of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are not subject to the law and will not be charged for linking to news content on their pages, it added.
      
Some analysts warned Spanish media would suffer.
      
"It is a disaster for the digital media in Spain," said Fernando Cano, editor of the online media journal PR Noticias.
      
"It was the traditional Spanish media that asked for this -- the print newspapers that have online editions. But it affects everyone."       

He estimated that Spanish news organisations could lose up to 30 percent of their online hits, which would in turn hurt their advertising revenue in an already struggling market.
                      
Google has been in legal conflict for years with European countries including Britain, Germany and France over various issues.
      
It is accused of...