Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google has inked agreements to pay over 300 publishers located in Germany, France and several other EU countries for their news and it plans to introduce a tool to make it possible for others to join as well, Reuters reported.
The move comes after landmark EU copyright rules were adopted 3 years ago, which postulate Google and other online platforms must pay news publishers, journalists, authors, musicians and performers for using their work.
“So far, we have agreements which cover more than 300 national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland, with many more discussions ongoing,” Sulina Connal, director for news and publishing partnerships, said in a blogpost, cited by Reuters.
German publishers such as Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung comprise two-thirds of this group.
“We are now announcing the launch of a new tool to make offers to thousands more news publishers, starting in Germany and Hungary, and rolling out to other EU countries over the coming months,” Connal said.
Alphabet shares closed lower for the fifth time in the past ten trading sessions on NASDAQ on Wednesday. The stock went down 0.69% ($15.85) to $2,272.05, after touching an intraday high at $2,327.29. The latter has been a price level not seen since May 6th ($2,351.43).
Shares of Alphabet Inc have retreated 21.57% so far in 2022 compared with a 17.44% loss for the benchmark index, S&P 500 (SPX).
In 2021, Alphabet’s stock went up 65.30%, thus, it outperformed the S&P 500, which registered a 26.89% gain.
Analyst stock price forecast and recommendation
According to TipRanks, all 30 surveyed investment analysts had rated Alphabet Inc’s stock as “Buy”. The median price target on the stock stands at $3,270.47.
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