Google drops "first click free," loathed by many publishers

NEW YORK — Google is ending "first click free," a policy loathed by publishers and media because it required them to provide a limited amount of free content before users of the world's biggest search engine could be asked to pay for it.Publishers will now be allowed to decide how many, if any, free articles they want to offer readers before charging a fee, Richard Gingras, vice president of news at Google Inc., wrote Monday in a company blog post.People using Chrome, Google's web browser,