Google Updates Policy on News Pay Walls. ‘First Click Free’ to End.<br />Google’s plans include doing away with the “first click free” policy, which requires subscription-based news outlets to offer three free articles a day through its search<br />and news features, allowing users to skirt pay walls.<br />A new program, which Google plans to start this week<br />and is calling “flexible sampling,” will allow those publishers to determine how many free clicks to give Google’s users.<br />Google is also looking at ways to help people subscribe to publications more easily, including using<br />machine learning to help publishers tailor options to a reader’s preferences and behavior.
