Global Regulations in Content Industries: The Google Privacy Policy as a News Gatekeeping Factor

Abstract

This article explores the role of privacy policies on internet sites as a newly emerging news gatekeeping factor as well as part of the new web world wars between regulators and internet giants' privacy policies, like the one of Google. All these developments are related to both innovation excellence and customer experience, in every aspect of life, business and entertainment, and therefore of the news industry. One of the most important fights of these recent wars is raging between Google and the EU on the field of customers' experience and their privacy protection. The author argues that even the updated news gatekeeping model by ICTs influences should be mapped more precisely in every one of its traditional pillars, focusing on the consumer's data protection. Their potential exploitation by search engines and advertisement industries from one side and the privacy protection claims from international institutions from the other, indicate the need of new variables in the equation of the updated media gatekeeping model, as derived from global regulations on the issue. The reactions of the EU to the actions of Google indicate the momentum of wars in citizen–customer's experience, which is the most reliable key performance indicator in the e/m commerce sector. A convenience sample's data show that the policy adopted by the EU and the one applied by the global content industries would remap the audiences' preferences and therefore the news industries strategies.