Google's fair contribution to Polish media companies should amount to EUR 78.67 million per year – estimates Fehradvice & Partners in the report “Media in Poland and their value for Google” created in cooperation with the Employers' Association of Digital Publishers.
“Starting from a total search advertising revenue of €577 million and applying Google's market share of 91.14%, the estimated revenue generated by Google's search engine is €525.88 million (lower bound €473.29 – €578.46 million),” it said.
It was indicated that, based on international standards for assigning values to content providers and applying sensitivity limits at each stage of the calculation, Google's fair annual contribution to Polish media companies is estimated at between EUR 49.98 million and EUR 119.04 million, with a calculated notional value of EUR 78.67 million per year.
“In the Google AdSense model, operators (website owners) can display Google ads on their sites, earning money whenever users click or view those ads. Google handles the allocation, tracking and payment of revenue,” it said.
It added that the website operator, in turn, provides content that attracts users to the site. In the case of AdSense, Google pays website operators a share of the revenue – usually between 51% and 60%, depending on the type of advertising (content pages vs. search results pages).
As indicated, Google has a dominant position in the Polish search engine market, controlling 91.14 percent of this segment. A significant part of the value generated in the search engine comes from information queries – many of them are based on journalistic content that provides reliable, complete and relevant answers. Despite this, media companies do not receive any financial compensation.
“This situation creates a structural imbalance that negatively impacts the financial stability and development of quality journalistic content in Poland. The aim of this study is to quantify the economic value that media content generates in Google search in Poland and to provide a data-driven basis for determining Google's fair contribution to Polish media organizations,” the report reads.
The study found that 68% of users clearly prefer the version of Google that includes media content. When such content is removed, user loyalty drops by 4.1 percentage points – a relative drop of about 8%.
Google is also perceived as significantly more complete, up-to-date, trustworthy, and high-quality when media content is present. While overall satisfaction remains relatively stable, users show a willingness to pay up to 18 percent more for Google when journalistic content is integrated.
“Empirical data also indicate that the presence of journalistic content significantly increases user retention in the Google ecosystem and extends the time of their engagement on the platform,” it was written. (PAP Biznes)
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