Google News
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Google News is an automated news aggregator provided by Google Inc. The Google News website was introduced as a beta release in April 2002. The service came out of beta on 23 January 2006. There are different versions of the aggregator for more than 20 regions in 12 languages, with more added all the time. Currently, service in the following languages is offered: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese (traditional and simplified characters), Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Arabic, Hebrew, Norwegian and Swedish.
To quell any charges of reporting bias, the service is fully automated with no human editors. Some have argued that automation doesn't equal lack of bias as automated systems are created by humans and hence hardcoded with whatever biases the human creators choose to endow them with. In addition, the sources included are determined by human review, and their selection has come up for criticism. In March 2005 attention was called to Google's inclusion of the white supremacist National Vanguard magazine, and the resulting controversy forced Google to remove that site from the service. In another case, Google was criticized for not including sources which are censored in China. In the official Google Blog on 9/27/2004, the Google Team wrote: "For users inside the People's Republic of China, we have chosen not to include sources that are inaccessible from within that country."
The service covers the news articles that appeared within the past 30 days on news websites in the language concerned, from various countries; for the English language it covers about 4,500 sites, for other languages less. It provides around the first 200 characters and links to the full article. Some of these websites require a subscription; in that case this is noted in the Google News summary of their articles.
In March 2005, Agence France Presse (AFP) sued Google for $17.5 million, alleging that Google News infringed on its copyright because "Google includes AFPs photos, stories and news headlines on Google News without permission from Agence France Presse."[1] [2] It was also alleged that Google ignored a cease and desist order, though Google counters that it has opt-out procedures which AFP could have followed but did not. Google has since ceased aggregating AFP's stories.
Google News quietly left its beta phase in January 2006.
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Features and customization
Google News provides searching, and the choice of sorting the results by date and time of publishing (not to be confused with date and time of the news' happening) or grouping them (and also grouping without searching). In the English versions, there are options to tailor the grouping to a selected national audience.
Users can request e-mail "alerts" on various keyword topics by subscribing to Google News Alerts. E-mails are sent to subscribers whenever news articles matching their requests come online. Alerts are also available via RSS and Atom feeds.
Users can customize the displayed sections, their location on the page, and how many stories are visible with a JavaScript-based drag and drop interface. Stories from different editions of Google News can be combined to form one personalized page, with the options stored in a cookie. The service has been integrated with Google Search History since November 2005. Upon its graduation from beta, a section was added that displays recommended news based on the user's Google News search history and the articles the user has clicked on (if the user has signed up for Search History).
News Archive Search
On the June 6, 2006, Google News was expanded, with the addition of News Archive Search. Users can search historial archives, going back more than 200 years. There is also a timeline view, to browse news from various years.
See also
- List of Google services and tools
- Yahoo! News
External links
- Google News website
- Google News Archive Search
- Technology behind Google News
- Google Search
- News sites ranked based on their relevance order at Google News
- Google News out of beta
- Official Google Blog: And Now, News
- Google Yahoo News
- Google News Search Operators
Categories: Google services | Web 2.0 | News websites

