Google will try to help newspapers and other publishers boost subscriptions by ending a decade-old policy that required them to provide a limited amount of free content before users of the world’s biggest search engine could be asked to pay for it.
NEW YORK — Google will try to help newspapers and other publishers boost subscriptions by ending a decade-old policy that required them to provide a limited amount of free content before users of the world’s biggest search engine could be asked to pay for it.
Google’s “first click free” policy was loathed by publishers and media because while the stories, videos and images appearing on Google have been free for its users, it is expensive to produce.
Publishers had been required to provide at least three free items under the search engine’s previous policy.
Publishers will now be allowed to decide how many, if any, free articles they want to offer readers before charging a fee, Richard Gingras, vice president of news at Google Inc., wrote Monday in a company blog post.
People using Chrome, Google’s web browser, can pick and choose what they are willing to pay for.
Among the changes announced by Google:
Newspapers and magazines have shut down in droves or they have been force to shrink operations drastically worldwide because of the influx of stories, images and video jettisoned across the interment, largely at no charge.
Technological changes have fractured the advertising market and constrained revenues for almost all established media.
Much of the content, created and paid for by media companies, travels through Google’s Chrome, which captured nearly 60 percent of all searches in September, according to NetMarketShare.
The change in Google policy was hailed immediately by major media companies.
“If the change is properly introduced, the impact will be profoundly positive for journalists everywhere and for the cause of informed societies,” News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson said in a prepared statement. “Fake news has prospered on digital platforms which have commodified content and thus enabled bad actors to game the system for commercial or political gain.”
Shares of companies like New York Times Co., News Corp. E. W. Scripps and Tronc Inc., all rose in when the market opened Monday.
The relationship between Google and publishers is complex. With readers opening tablets and phones rather than picking up a newspaper from the stoop or lawn, Google has vexed publishers as it gobbles up advertising dollars for content produced by those publishers.
But they need powerful search engines to spread their content and gain readers as they transition to digital.
A Pew Research Center analysis of data from AAM shows that total weekday circulation for U. S. daily newspapers – both print and digital – fell 8 percent in 2016, marking the 28th consecutive year of declines.
But digital subscriptions are rising rapidly for major established newspapers.
In July, news outlets sought permission from Congress for the right to negotiate jointly with Google and Facebook, given the duo’s dominance in online advertising and online news traffic. The News Media Alliance, which represents, nearly 2,000 news organizations, say that because Google and Facebook are so dominant, news publishers are forced to “surrender their content and play by their rules on how news and information is displayed, prioritized and monetized.”
Publishers want stronger protections for intellectual property, support for subscription models and a bigger share of the online advertising market. Google and Facebook combined will account for 60 percent of the US digital advertising market this year, according to the research firm eMarketer.
Google decided to offer more flexibility to publishers based on additional research, feedback from publishers, and extended experiments with The New York Times and Financial Times, Gingras said.
Google says it’s working with publishers to streamline whatever payment form they would like to pursue so that it’s easier for users to decide what they wish to pay for. The goal is to help publishers identify possible subscribers and build a better subscription model, Google said.

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A small French town is holding a memorial gathering for two young women stabbed to death by a suspected extremist after a weekend birthday celebration.
The Latest on Marseille knife attack (all times local):
3:45 p.m.
A small French town is holding a memorial gathering for two young women stabbed to death by a suspected extremist after a weekend birthday celebration.
The mayor of Eguilles in southern France told reporters Monday that «we are traumatized» and his whole town of 8,000 people «is in deep mourning» after Sunday’s attack.
Mayor Robert Dargone said the town is gathering Monday evening to honor the victims: a medical student from Eguilles and her cousin, from the Lyon region. He said their identities would not be released to save the families further trauma.
French media reports said the young women had come together for a weekend birthday celebration. They were stabbed Marseille’s main train station by a man the Islamic State group claimed as its «soldier.»
___
12:30 p.m.
France’s main counterterrorism prosecutor says a man who fatally stabbed two women at Marseille’s main train station had used seven different identities in previous encounters with police.
Prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters Monday that the suspect’s most recent arrest occurred just two days before Sunday’s train station stabbing. Molins said that the suspect was picked up for shoplifting and released the next day, and the case was dropped. The suspect has never been convicted in the French justice system.
The prosecutor said the victims of the attack were cousins visiting each other for a birthday celebration.
Investigators are trying to determine the attacker’s real identity and whether he had links to the Islamic State group, which claimed he was one of its «soldiers.» The attacker was killed by soldiers after the stabbing.
___
9:30 a.m.
French officials say a man who fatally stabbed two women at Marseille’s main train station had been arrested and released the day before the attack.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack, the latest of several targeting France.
Two police officials said Monday the man didn’t have French residency papers and was detained for suspected shoplifting in the Lyon region Saturday before being released. The officials said he wasn’t on France’s extremist watch list.
The suspect, killed by police after Sunday’s attack, was identified by his fingerprints. French media reports said he used multiple identity papers.
The victims were cousins between 17 and 21 years old, according to three police and judicial officials who weren’t authorized to be publicly named discussing an ongoing investigation.
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BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Palestinian prime minister led a delegation from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip on…
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Palestinian prime minister led a delegation from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip on Monday for talks with Hamas in the most ambitious attempt to reconcile the rival political factions since the Islamic militant group seized control of the seaside territory over a decade ago.
Rami Hamdallah began his visit with a message of reconciliation, shortly after arriving in a 30-vehicle motorcade through the Erez border crossing separating Israel and Gaza. He was accompanied by a large delegation of Fatah officials from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, dozens of aides and armed bodyguards.
«The only way to statehood is through unity,» Hamdallah said, speaking at a welcome ceremony attended by Fatah and Hamas officials. «We are coming to Gaza again to deepen the reconciliation and end the split.»
Some 2,000 people greeted Hamdallah’s delegation at the border. Hundreds of others lined the streets to greet him, preventing the motorcade from making a stop at a Fatah official’s house for a planned lunch meeting.
The sides instead traveled to a beachside hotel and later returned to the home of the local Fatah official in Shajaiyeh, a neighborhood near the border damaged by heavy fighting during the 2014 war with Israel. No further public events were scheduled Monday.
Hamas ousted the Fatah-led forces of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in the summer of 2007, leaving the Palestinians torn between rival governments located on opposite sides of Israel.
While previous attempts at reconciliation have failed, including a previous visit by Hamdallah in 2015, years of international isolation and steadily worsening conditions in Gaza appear to have pushed Hamas toward compromise this time around.
In a significant concession, Hamas has offered to turn over all governing responsibilities to Hamdallah. But key sticking points, primarily Hamas’ refusal to disarm its powerful military wing, are likely to complicate or even derail the reconciliation efforts in the coming weeks.
«We realize that the road is still long and hard. We will be faced with obstacles and challenges, but our people are able to rise again from among destruction and suffering,» Hamdallah said.
Hamdallah’s Cabinet will hold a meeting in Gaza, and his ministers are expected to assume authority over government offices this week. Negotiations are expected to move to Cairo next week to work on the more difficult issues.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, 82, has said the rift is his greatest regret, and both sides appear eager to work out a deal. Regaining control of Gaza would give Abbas a much-needed accomplishment after years of failed peace efforts with Israel.
Although Hamas has ruled Gaza for the past decade, it has watched the territory fall deeper into poverty, battered by a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade and three devastating wars with Israel. Unemployment is estimated at well over 40 percent, Gaza’s 2 million residents are virtually barred from traveling abroad, and residents receive electricity for just a few hours a day.
Several factors appear to be working in favor of reconciliation.
Hamas’ new leader, Yehiyeh Sinwar, has expressed a willingness to yield most power to Abbas, preferring to return to his group’s roots as an armed «resistance» movement battling Israel. The group has consolidated its leadership inside Gaza, meaning they no longer have to consult with exiled leaders spread out across the Arab world. And perhaps most critically, Hamas has improved relations with the Egyptian government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
In a sign of these improved ties, Egypt has sent a delegation to Gaza to help mediate talks, and it will play host to continued negotiations in the coming weeks. Egypt also maintains good ties with Israel and it could potentially play an important role in selling a reconciliation deal to Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist group. Hamas seeks Israel’s destruction and has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks over the years.
Still, many obstacles lie ahead. While Hamas is eager to give up its governing responsibilities, officials say the group will not give up its formidable arsenal of thousands of rockets and mortars aimed at Israel. Officials close to Abbas say he will not agree to allow Hamas to act like Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that dominates its country’s politics.
It also remains unclear what will happen to Hamas’ 40,000 civil servants, who were hired after Abbas forced his employees in Gaza to resign after the Hamas takeover. In an area with few jobs, both sides will likely want their loyalists to receive salaries.
Officials on both sides said the more difficult issues will be addressed at the upcoming talks in Cairo.

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