Google Stepping in to Ease Pain for Media Publishers

After making the unusual move last year to end its contentious “first-click-free” policy, Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google is stepping up efforts to improve its relationship with media publishers. Google has come up with a new product, Subscribe with Google, which not only seeks to simplify consumers’ subscriptions to digital publications but also provides publishers with data and tools they could use to grow readership and revenue. Subscribe with Google is set to be offered on a revenue-sharing basis, with publishers keeping the lion’s share.