Google News in Spain to close on December 16

Measure taken before a new intellectual property law is introduced on January 1

SPAIN -- Google will shut the service on 16 December before the law comes into effect in January, the firm said. The law allows Spanish publications to charge services like Google News if their content is shown on the site. But Google has argued against the ruling, saying that it makes no money from its search-based service"It's with real sadness that on 16 December we'll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain," said Richard Gingras, head of Google News in a blog post on Wednesday.

Google Spain makes profits after three years of losses

MADRID – The Spanish branch of Google is finally in the black, after three years of red numbers. The USA company has set aside €1.75 million for corporate taxes, so net profits are €4mm. It’s not that the Spanish market is unprofitable – quite the contrary, as we report below – but their accounting practices, in common with other national branches by billing in Europe through Ireland, where the taxes are considerably lower than elsewhere on the continent. Those losses, then, were covered by the profits of other branches, so no great headache for one of the world’s largest businesses (and getting bigger). The practice is recognised as perfectly legal by the Spanish tax authorities, after an inspection Google re-billed its costs in 2013, giving itself a larger margin – something that was done in many other countries after widespread complaints that it wasn’t paying its way. So Google Spain is now in profit and paying something pretty modest in taxes.