Google News deleting AFP content from its index

March 22, 2005

AFP (Agence France Presse) sued Google for including AFP�s pictures, news stories and certain news headlines on Google News without their permission.

AFP is seeking damages of around $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying its copyrighted material.

Agence France Presse then informed Google that Google News is not authorized to use AFP�s copyrighted material as it does and had requested Google to cease and desist from infringing its copyrighted work. Now Google News is doing some house cleaning by wiping its news syndication service clean of Agence France Presse.

Google has taken notice and as per the latest reports, they have started removing content picked up from the Agence France Presse from their database, which caches news around 30 days old.

Google however has not announced any time duration it would take them to clear their database of any copyrighted content from the news agency. Google representative Steve Langdon said in a statement: �We allow publishers to opt out of Google News. Most, however, want to be included in Google News because they believe it�s a benefit to them and their readers.�

This news however raises concerns about the validity of news syndication sites. Google News is only one of the thousands of news sites around the world, which syndicates news from various sources in one form or the other. If these sites are sued like Google has been, there will not be any shortages of court cases arising from this situation.

Source: Search Engine Journal

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