The New York Times points out that Google News has evolved little during the six years since its launch, but the story only hints at the reason – fear.

Google is afraid that Sam Zell, who owns the troubled Tribune Co., and other struggling media moguls will get angry enough about their declining revenues and then sue Google News for copyright infringement. Google would be forced into a huge settlement or risk losing in court, which could destroy its core business model. After all, the entire search engine is based on the assumption that Google can legally copy whatever it wants.

So instead Google is playing a waiting game, suppressing the normal flood of innovation it applies to products in case they might raise the hackles of sleepy media moguls. Here’s how the Times reports it:

By and large, news industry executives have come to accept Google News.

“Clearly, some people use Google News as a primary news source, which makes them a competitor,” said Jim Brady, executive editor of WashingtonPost.com. “But they are a driver of a significant amount of traffic, which we appreciate.”

… In Europe, the criticism of Google News has generally been more strident. A Belgian court ruled that Google News had violated copyright laws by publishing links to newspaper articles without permission.

… People close to the company, who asked not to be named because they did not want to jeopardize professional relationships, said that concerns about antagonizing news publishers have guided some decisions at Google News, most notably the decision not to place ads on the site. Like some other Google projects, Google News has at times also struggled internally to get the resources it needed, these people said.

If Google stalled its upgrades for fear that folks will realize it's making money, then executive Marissa Mayer, who oversees Google News, made a terrific gaffe elsewhere in the article. She admits that despite not overtly posting advertising, the product does generate revenue.

Ms. Mayer called Google News one of the company’s most innovative products, and said that it helped the bottom line because Google News readers were among the most active users of Google’s search and other services. News results also show up on the company’s main search pages, along with ads.

“It directly feeds the main business,” Ms. Mayer said.

Any concession that Google News is of a "commercial nature" automatically puts it in violation of fair use. So it's shocking admission by Mayer in an interview.

To let Google inoculate itself from prosecution and then move ahead with innovation, I proposed a revision to the way robots.txt files are coded. The new file would require all publishers to grant indexing permission instead of Google simply assuming it has the right to take whatever it wants.

As newspaper companies lose more and more, I’d say it’s worth Google’s time to ensure it can’t be scapegoated when the sleeping giants wake to find someone stole their golden goose.