Google Won’t Hide News Behind Paywalls

Many are now frustrated that when they are searching for news around the coronavirus and COVID-19, often after they click on the result, a paywall comes up on the news site asking to pay to see the story. Danny Sullivan from Google said Google wouldn’t give searchers a way to hide such sites in the search results.

Danny Sullivan added “We want to present the best information. Some of that is from sites that depend on subscriptions.” In addition, Danny said “a lot of sites that do have paywalls have been kindly dropping them for COVID-19 / coronavirus coverage.”

Here was the conversation on Twitter:

We wouldn’t do that. We want to present the best information. Some of that is from sites that depend on subscriptions. BTW, a lot of sites that do have paywalls have been kindly dropping them for COVID-19 / coronavirus coverage.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 19, 2020

It would be nice to see an option, a search setting, to hide sites that have paywalls, but I get it. Google is trying to support the news industry and doing so would not support the news industry too much.

Forum discussion at Twitter.