Basically, Google would not confirm the La Repubblica report, saying “we do not pre-announce products and do not have anything to announce at this time.” But the Newspass system — at least from the translation of the La Repubblica article — appears to have many elements of a paid content proposal Google made to the Newspaper Association of America last fall.
Essentially, it is a paid-content system that functions on an a la carte as well as a subscription basis. News stories published through it would be behind a paywall, but will still be discoverable through searches or news aggregators. Back then, Google said it was “uniquely positioned to help publishers create a scalable e-commerce system via our Checkout product and also enable users to find this content via search — even if it is behind a paywall.”
“Newspass” is not only a great news for newspapers but also for publishers. It will be a good revenue making opportunity for most. Details go this way: Google is soon going to unleash a new paid CMS (Content Management System) called “Newspass” that allows publishers to submit their content with an access charge. According to La Repubblica, with Newspass, people will be able to log-in to the sites of participating news publishers using a single login. Publishers will be able to designate what type of payment they want to accept, including subscriptions and micropayments. People who find content from participating publishers in Google search will see a paywall icon next to that content and be able to purchase access directly from there using Checkout.
However, when Google news readers do search, they will receive both paid and unpaid results. Visitors are then allowed to pay for access via Google Checkout or possibly even Paypal in order to access the paid content or otherwise not. The revenue would then be split (between Google and the content publisher) similar to how the Google Adsense system currently works.
Google has had some of its unpleasant conflict with the news industry in Italy, where publishers have complained loudly that they are not making enough money online and have discussed about a lack of transparency on Google’s part in the way it handles both its search engine and Google News. Those complaints have in part prompted other actions by Google to improve its relationships with news publishers, including its recent disclosure of the percentage of AdSense revenues it shares with publishers.
Here is Google’s full statement: “We have consistently said we are talking with news publishers to figure out ways we can work together, including whether we can help them with technology to power any subscription services they may be thinking of building. Our aim, as with all Google products, would be to reach as broad a global audience as possible.”