An Italian national newspaper has reported that Google plans to launch a service allowing publishers to hide content behind a paywall before the end of the year.
The report in La Repubblica newspaper suggests the system will be linked directly to Google’s search results and will allow consumers to buy paid content directly via Google Checkout with one click. Observes say it could provide a valuable revenue boost for cash-strapped newspapers.
Google is said to be approaching publishers to gauge their interest in its own version of a micropayment system it linked directly to Google’s search results, which would let consumers buy paid content directly via Google Checkout with one click.
According to UK marketing industry magazine Brand Republic, the launch of Newspass would certainly head off some of criticism that has been levelled at Google by the likes of Rupert Murdoch who dispute Google’s claim to send valuable traffic to newspapers.
Murdoch said last year: “We’d rather have fewer people coming to our websites but paying.” And his latest manifestation of this vision is the paid for TheTimes.co.uk website, launched in early June 2010.
La Repubblica has quoted Google’s Vice-President of global media, Henrique de Castro, as saying that his company wanted to forge partnerships with other media organisations, rather than rival them.
According to Brand Republic, it is unclear whether the system is being developed locally in Italy by Google where it already faces an investigation by the country’s Competition Authority. The investigation has been running since last year, after the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers complained about the lack of transparency in how Google News calculates its rankings.
The Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers complained that Google was using its dominant position to stop publishers from earning their fair share of online ad revenues.
It seems likely, however, that the plan is one Google hopes to launch globally in that it sounds similar to an idea that it proposed to the Newspaper Association of America last year, which looked at how a successful micropayments model might work.