Google agrees to pay Italian publishers for news

Google announced on Wednesday it has signed licensing deals with numerous Italian media publishers to pay for news content, in the US tech giant's latest move to tamp down media anger over lost advertising revenue. It follows an agreement struck with some French publishers earlier in the year over "neighbouring rights", which were introduced by an EU directive two years ago and call for payment for showing snippets of news content as part of internet searches. Wednesday's deal will give the Italian publishers access to the Google News Showcase programme, which sees it pay outlets for a selection of enriched content. News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at Google's failure to give them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news search results.