Google News Cuts Belgium

Saturday September 23, 2006

Google News is a great way to search the news or keep track of the latest news headlines, but not if you're in Belgium. Belgian courts ordered Google to remove Belgian content from Google News after a group of Belgian papers sued.

This is not the first clash Google has had with traditional media outlets, and it reflects a big misunderstanding in how Google works. Google doesn't take traffic away from media outlets. It drives the traffic to them. They're shooting themselves in the foot by removing themselves from Google.

Savvy companies buy ads with Google and try to find better ways to improve their rankings in search results. Dinosaurs try to drive search engines away, and dinosaurs become rapidly extinct.