“It is very likely that Google will not be the only platform to close its news aggregator [in Spain]. With this legislation reform we found ourselves in a situation of legal uncertainty that could have unpredictable consequences,” Victor Domingo said.
On Tuesday, Google shut down its news service in Spain due to a new intellectual property law that obliges news aggregators to pay compensation for publishing news from Spanish media sources.
According to the Spanish authorities, the sole purpose of the law is “to protect the media.”
Domingo, however, believes that by adopting the measure the Spanish government has chosen to favor the major publishers over the country’s Internet users.
“The government has acted against the development of the Information Society. Instead of trying to adapt the reality to the progress, the progress is being adapted to the concept of profit of a certain industry, meaning the major publishers,” Domingo said.
Spain's intellectual property law also known as the Google Tax will take effect on January 1, 2015. Failure to oblige with the new measure could result in fines of up to 300,000 euro (about $375,000). Announcing its plans to leave Spain, Google said it was not worth considering paying the publishers as the company makes no money on its news service.
Faced with a similar problem in France in 2013, Google pledged to pay 60 million euro ($75 million) over the next three years to help French offline media increase its Internet presence.
