How the new “Google tax” could change the internet as we know it

One of the hottest topics of debate surrounding online content is copyright law – specifically what constitutes fair usage and what constitutes copyright infringement.

That’s why we may soon face a “Google tax”, a premium placed on linked content that would require anyone who links to a news story to pay compensation to the original author.

“For example, anyone linking to a piece of news would have to shell out compensation similar to what a radio station must pay for playing a song,” reports QZ.

This would force any aggregator or search engine to pay for linking to a headline.

“Needless to say, the elephant that sits in the crosshairs is Google, both for its search engine and the Google News service that aggregates thousands of publishers.”

Moves to pass the tax already failed in Spain and Germany in 2014, but the European Commission recently decided to open the discussion as it pertains to copyright concerns.