• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 11, 2014

Google will shutter Google News in Spain based on new legislation that imposes strict fees on content aggregators.

The Mountain View, Calif. search company announced in a blog post Thursday it will disable the service and remove Spanish publishers from Google News on Dec. 16, before a new copyright law goes into effect in January 2015.

The announced closure is the latest move in long-running disagreements between Google and European newspaper publishers.

"This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not," Richard Gingras, head of Google News, wrote. "As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site), this new approach is simply not sustainable. So it’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain."

Google started asking publishers for their consent to summarize content in search results after Germany revised its copyright laws in 2013, which would have required Google to make payments. The Spanish legislation, nicknamed the "Google Tax," did not specify how much Google would need to pay publishers, reports the BBC.

In November, The European Union Parliament recommended that search be split from other businesses, Google or any search engine tied to the respective company's other businesses. The Parliament said splitting the business would increase competitive conditions and prevent any abuse in the marketing of interlinked services by operators of search engines."