Fear not, news publishers, Google News is not an editorial venture, nor does it aim to be. And "we definitely respect copyright law."

This is essentially what Google News Business Product Manager Josh Cohen said at the 2008 Canadian Newspaper Association/Canadian Community Newspapers Association conference in Toronto.

"We're not creating content, we're not editing it. We certainly work with publishers on a regular basis ... but I think we're a different part of the ecosystem," he said.

Asked why some news publishers see Google News as a competitor, Cohen replied that "globally, with a handful of exceptions, these publishers are all on Google News. So I think that the vast, vast majority - we're sort of working with them in some way."

According to him, Google News fully respects copyright law, by licensing content when it uses more than a headline or snippet.

And as usual, Cohen reaffirmed that Google's broader goal wasn't content creation.

"Again it's really about helping people to find the content that's out there. We just don't see ourselves as content creators. We're more of a platform for that content."

But publishers' main concern may be that they have generally served as both the content creators and the platform to carry that content.

Read the story on our sister site, the SFN Blog.

Source: Toronto Star