Search engine giant Google faces having to explain how it compiles its results on Google News, if a challenge by a group of Italian newspaper publishers is successful.

The publishers, under the umbrella of the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers, believe Google is capitalising on its market dominance to hamper newspaper companies’ attempts to grow their online advertising revenue.

This is seen as a potentially important revenue channel for all newspapers as they see their classified and display advertising sales plummet in the face of online competition.

Because many users access the publishers’ sites through Google News, good rankings are coveted, and seen as directly influencing the potential for advertising revenue.

Speaking to the New York Times, Carlo Malinconico, president of the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers, said:

“Publishers provide much content on the internet, but get nearly nothing for it. This is not fair… our feeling is we lose more than we gain.”

But a Google spokesperson claimed in response:

“Google News drives significant traffic and new readers to newspaper websites.”

And the company added that newspaper publishers can ask for their content not to be indexed on Google News if they wished.