Google Disputes Report of Revenue Sharing Deal with Publishers

Google has called a recent report claiming that they will be sharing a percentage of their revenue with news publishers “totally wrong.”

CNET reports that tech giant Google has taken issue with a recent Financial Times report which claimed that Google planned to share a percentage of their ad revenue with news publishers. The Financial Times report claimed that Google would be combining their vast database of users’ personal data with machine learning algorithms to help publishers grow their number of subscribers. Google called this report “totally wrong” and said that their subscription model was still in early stages of development and no deal had been made whatsoever with publishers.

Google spokeswoman Maggie Shiels told CNET, “We have not reached any conclusions on the revenue side. We haven’t reached any conclusions [regarding] subscriptions and need to speak to publishers.”

The Financial Times reported that Google would develop a deal with news publishers similar to the arrangement Google currently has with traditional advertisers through the company’s AdSense program.

Richard Gingras, Google’s head of news, reportedly told the Financial Times, “It will obviously come down to what we think that business relationship should be but, bottom line, I think [revenue shares] will be exceedingly generous [to news publishers]. In our ad environment, the rev shares are 70 per cent-plus. The rev shares [for publishers] will be significantly more generous than that.”

Google is attempting to accommodate news publishers, stating earlier this month that news websites that utilize paywalls will no longer be demoted in Google search rankings.