Do you have any statements or signaling you can link to from either of these companies to suggest they are in favor of this law? I know Google, for example, has fought strongly against similar link tax and other laws related to Google News in the past. There is also a statement from them referenced in this article: https://www.politico.eu/article/plan-to-make-google-pay-for-...
> The Commission’s proposal “would hurt anyone who writes, reads or shares the news — including the many European startups working with the news sector to build sustainable business models online,” Google said in a statement.
I think it may be true that they may suffer the law better than their competitors. But I think if it was likely that they would benefit absolutely, they'd be in favor of the law, or at least ambivalent, rather than strongly opposed. Don't you?
I personally believe (without any evidence) that they are ambivalent, maybe slightly opposed. However, they needed to oppose in public, otherwise, this would have been a PR disaster:
Publishers: "You steal our content and are unwilling to pay, so we need a law!"
Google: "You're right, please do the law, because it would harm our competitors!"
They could easily couch the statement in such a way that they would appear blameless, if they really wanted to make a positive statement. E.g. "We recognize the critical contribution of publishing companies to our society and want to do our part to ensure the continued existence of a strong publishing industry."
> The Commission’s proposal “would hurt anyone who writes, reads or shares the news — including the many European startups working with the news sector to build sustainable business models online,” Google said in a statement.