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October 2, 2017 04:00 pm
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/5aIFRvEp-G0/google-scraps-controversial-policy-that-gave-free-access-to-paywalled-articles-through-sea
Google Scraps Controversial Policy That Gave Free Access To Paywalled Articles Through Search
For years, Google has provided a nifty trick to get around subscriptions for newspapers and magazines. But the company is now doing away with it. From a report: Google is ending its controversial First Click Free (FCF) policy that publishers loathed because it required them to allow Google search results access to news articles hidden behind a paywall. The company is replacing the decade-old FCF with Flexible Sampling, which allows publishers instead to decide how many (if any) articles they want to allow potential subscribers to access. Google says it's also working on a suite of new tools to help publishers reach new audiences and grow revenue. Via FCF, users could access an article for free but would be prompted to log-in or subscribe if they clicked anywhere else on the page. Publishers were required to allow three free articles per day which Google indexed so that they appeared in searches for a particular topic or keyword. Opting out of the FCF feature was detrimental because it demoted a publisher's ranking on Google Search and Google News.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/5aIFRvEp-G0/google-scraps-controversial-policy-that-gave-free-access-to-paywalled-articles-through-sea
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