Google is suspending its news offering in Spain ahead of the new intellectual property regulation coming into effect, which will force the search major to pay for showing Spanish content in its service.
Google’s move is the latest run-in between Google and European content publishers.
Spanish publishers claim that aggregation services are infringing on copyrighted content, while the search major claims that the news stories are linked to the official website which lies within the bounds of fair use.
The scheme involves disabling Google News service and eliminating Spanish publishers from the service on 16th December, before the so called "Google tax" regulation comes into effect in January 2015.
Google News head Richard Gingras said: "But sadly, as a result of a new Spanish law, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain."
"This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not.
"As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable.
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"So it’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain."
The new copyright law, which was passed by Spanish government in October, imposes fees for online content aggregators including Google News as part of efforts to address the concern of the country’s print media industry.
Companies using the content and failing to pay a fee to the Association of Editors of Spanish Dailies will lead to fines of €600,000 ($750,000).
