Google to limit free news access

Newspaper publishers and paid-for-content providers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced.

The move follows complaints from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages.

Accordingly, Google has introduced changes in its First Click Free programme, and publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.

Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages.

"Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free," Google senior business product manager Josh Cohen said in a blog post.

"Now, we've updated the programme so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing."

Google users may start seeing registration pages appear when they click for a sixth time on any given day at websites of publishers using the program, says to Cohen.