The value of news content to Google is way more than you think

What is the value of news on social media, search and other platforms that freely aggregate headlines, snippets and even photos so that most people never even feel the need to click through to read a whole story? 

This question is at the heart of recent efforts around the world to level the playing field between technology platforms and news organizations in order to make Big Tech firms pay for the news they use. But whereas tech companies like Google and Meta have sought to narrow the discussion to focus on clickthrough rates and the value of the traffic they provide to publishers, this approach disregards the ways that journalism improves the platform itself for all users, even if they don’t click through on a headline.

Now, a new study finds that the value of news is far higher than policymakers or publishers think it is, at least on Google Search, which accounts for the majority of Google’s $280 billion annual revenue.

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