In 2016, the European Commission proposed the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market 2016/0280 (COD). When the draft came out, it attracted a lot of controversy. Among them, Internet giants including Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and so on put forward the biggest objection.
The two important provisions in the Bill, namely Article 11 “Linked Tax” and Article 13 “Implementation of the Obligation to Identify Piracy” have the greatest impact on these media giants. Google recently pointed out that if the draft is approved, Google becomes very “empty” as a search engine. Search results will not display images, site titles, previews, and only one URL due to copyright issues.
It is unclear whether the draft will eventually be passed. However, if no external contents are allowed to be posted on the website, there must be effects to search engine users and with worse user experiences.
Tags: Google, UX, Search Engine