Google to pay news publishers $1 billion over next three years
The money will compensate publishers for content for Google's new news app.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, is launching a news app.
Google announced on Thursday a new initiative to pay publishers $1 billion over the next three years for news content. The payments will be compensation for news content that will appear on the new app, Google News Showcase.
The app will feature the "editorial curation of award-winning newsrooms to give readers more insight on the stories that matter, and in the process, helps publishers develop deeper relationships with their audiences," Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, said in a blog post.
This move comes as Google has faced ongoing criticism from newspapers, watchdog organizations and antitrust regulators for profiting from the content of other websites.
According to Google, News Showcase is launching Thursday in Germany and Brazil and will gradually roll out to other countries. "News Showcase is made up of story panels that will appear initially in Google News on Android. The product will launch soon on Google News on iOS, and will come to Google Discover and Search in the future," Google said. The publishers
The nearly 200 publishers that Google has signed up so far are based in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the UK and Australia.
Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.