Google has made it more difficult for people to save pictures from its image search product, as part of a “peace deal” with photo library Getty Images.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Getty Images complained to the European Commission, accusing Google of anti-competitive practices.<\/p>\n
Google said it had removed some features from image search, including the “view image” button.<\/p>\n
Getty Images said it was a “significant milestone” but critics said the move was “a step backwards”.<\/p>\n
Why did Getty Images complain?<\/strong><\/p>\n Getty Images is a photo library that sells the work of photographers and illustrators to businesses, newspapers and broadcasters.<\/p>\n It complained that Google’s image search made it easy for people to find Getty Images pictures and take them, without the appropriate permission or licence.<\/p>\n Google’s image search feature had a button labelled “view image” that would open an individual picture in the web browser, making it easy to download.<\/p>\n People could find and take images – albeit not in high quality and usually watermarked – without visiting the Getty Images website.<\/p>\n How has Google responded?<\/strong><\/p>\n As part of its agreement with Getty Images, the “view image” button has been removed.<\/p>\n While it is still easy for people to download an image, people are now encouraged to trawl through the website it appears on to find it.<\/p>\n Google said the change would “help connect users and useful websites”.<\/p>\n Critics said the change made Google Images harder to use Getty Images said Google had also agreed to display image copyright information more prominently next to results.<\/p>\n ‘Terrible idea’<\/strong><\/p>\n “For those asking, yes, these changes came about in part due to our settlement with Getty Images this week,” Google said.<\/p>\n “They are designed to strike a balance between serving user needs and publisher concerns, both stakeholders we value.”<\/p>\n But critics said the changes were “awful”, “user-unfriendly” and “degraded the product”.<\/p>\n “This is a terrible idea… you find an image on Google Images only for the image to be nowhere in sight,” said one user on Twitter. “Talk about destroying your own successful service.”<\/p>\n Many suggested people should try rival image search engines such as Bing, which still have a “view image” button.<\/p>\n Others pointed out that right-clicking an image in Google’s Chrome browser, and clicking “open image in new tab” replicated the missing function.<\/p>\n In a statement, Getty Images said: “We are pleased to announce that after working cooperatively with Google over the past months, our concerns are being recognised and we have withdrawn our complaint.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Google has made it more difficult for people to save pictures from its image search product, as part of a “peace deal” with photo library Getty Images. In 2017, Getty Images complained to the European Commission, accusing Google of anti-competitive practices. Google said it had removed some features from image search, including the “view image” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":401923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[225],"yoast_head":"\n
\nIt also removed the “search by image” button, which was an easy way of finding larger copies of photographs.<\/p>\n