NEWS: Google's online ad dominance looms over newspapers

Google's online ad dominance looms over newspapers

from editorsweblog

How can newspapers curb Google's expanding reach into their digital profits?

According to BusinessWeek's Roben Farzard, the giant search engine "is the ultimate enemy of the journalism that we constitutionally cherish."

"For every dollar of traditional ads it displaces, Google's intermediation kicks back mere nickels to content providers...(Google) won't pony up the money to station and protect correspondents in Baghdad, nor will it pick up the martini tab when a reporter interviews a hedge fund manager's whistleblowing mistress."

According to Farzard, Google, will "either run or broker half of the world's $55 billion in online advertising" by next year.

To save news organizations, Farzard suggests implementing a profits tax on the search-engine giant, limiting its ability to commandeer the newspaper advertising market.

But is it really possible, as Farzard argues, to tax the search engine giant? 

Ed: Google does not pay content fees.