European Union law now defines digital platforms as obligated to pay news reuse, but how much should Google pay for previews on articles? That is what Google is looking to find out as it runs an experiment in nine European Union countries.

During the test, 1% of users will not see articles from EU-based news publishers in search and Google News so that Google can see its real impact on traffic. Or at least that was the plan. But the plan does not seem well-thought-through given it appears that news publishers discovered the test in a blog post.

Just a day after Google made its plan public, the Paris Commercial Court issued an order saying it was walking out on its existing agreement with the French Competition Authority. Google could decide to scuttle the test or pay €900,000 a day. The company opted for the latter.
Now we are down to eight countries for this 1% experiment—so far.