Google tries to win EU friends with €150 million Digital News Initiative fund

Google has announced the Digital News Initiative, “a partnership between Google and news publishers in Europe to support high quality journalism through technology and innovation,” which sees it working with eight European news organizations to help with product development and putting €150 million into a three-year “innovation fund.” This evident attempt by Google to mend its bridges with the European news publishing industry comes in the wake of years of complaints about the effects of Google's services on traditional newspapers, and against a background of the European Commission's antitrust investigation into Google's search and Android businesses, with the threat that it could be widened to include other services.

Carlo D'Asaro Biondo, Google's European president of strategic partnerships, admitted that the company's relationship with newspapers had been difficult, and that sometimes Google was to blame: “I firmly believe that Google has always wanted to be a friend and partner to the news industry, but I also accept we’ve made some mistakes along the way.” In an attempt to win over European news publishers -- and perhaps to minimize future complaints to the European Commission -- D'Asaro Biondo laid out Google's plans for the new Digital News Initiative. One strand involves helping European news publishers with product development: “We will create a publishers’ working group from across Europe to explore product developments aimed at increasing revenue, traffic and audience engagement.” Google will also increase its investment in training and research. Finally, it will create a €150 million (~$167 million) fund with the goal of “stimulating and supporting innovation in digital journalism within the news industry in Europe, over the next three years.” This is perhaps the most obvious part of Google's plan to spread some money around in an attempt to win over the European newspapers publishers, whether large or small: “Anyone working on innovation in online news in Europe will be able to apply, including national and regional publishers, new players and pure players.”