4 ms·

I get that HN hates journalists, but other than that I don’t see why people are on google’s side here. Is it about personal convenience? If you want to scrape

I get that HN hates journalists, but other than that I don’t see why people are on google’s side here. Is it about personal convenience? If you want to scrape someone else’s work and display it next to your own ads, it doesn’t seem crazy to ask you to pay up.

ac29 7y ago
Google News doesn't have ads. In fact, its primary purpose appears to be to drive traffic to publisher's sites, which do have ads (presumably Google hopes they are Google ads).
- pdkl95 7y ago
  > Google News doesn't have ads A traditional abuse of monopoly power is providing a good or service at a loss to gain control of a new market.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    how long has Google news been running, I would think they had control of that market long ago if that's what they were aiming for.
    - pdkl95 7y ago
      Indeed they have had control of that market for some time. Being a dominant position over a market generally isn't illegal, but most antitrust laws put restrictions on how that monopoly power can be used.
  - qnsi 7y ago
    No. In traditional sense it's having higher not lower price, forcing buyers to pay more. Monopoly by definition already has 100% of the market
    - pdkl95 7y ago
      > it's having higher not lower price, forcing buyers to pay more. Exerting control over a market to raise prices is another traditional method for abusing monopoly power. This isn't what Google is doing re: news. The method I'm referring to is where Google uses their existing monopoly position in one market (search) to exert control over another market (news publishing). See "predatory pricing", "dumping". > Monopoly by definition already has 100% of the market That is one definition. Other definitions are based on having the power to control a market, which doesn't always require having a particular share of a market.
- criddell 7y ago
  You don't think Google News has any value to Google?
  - bagacrap 7y ago
    This interpretation of the law says that Google must pay for the right to direct traffic to a publisher who is running some other ad network's ads (or uses a subscription model). No, I do not think this arrangement has any value to Google, in fact it is obviously negative value.
    - criddell 7y ago
      It isn't obvious to me at all. When you visit a newspaper site via a Google link, Google uses that information to build a more complete profile of you and of what the broader public is interested in right now. Those signals are valuable to Google.
pkaye 7y ago
I don't think news.google.com has any ads.
kevindong 7y ago
I don't necessarily disagree about Google being required to pay publishers to make money off of having snippets of their content in Google News. But requiring Google to both index all websites (in a separate attempt to mitigate the monopoly effect) and requiring Google to pay publishers to include content in search results certainly has a bad smell to it. If Google had the option to not index the websites, then I'd say it's fine.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Talanes 7y ago
  Google did have the option. They chose instead to pressure newspapers into signing free agreements to add their content back. Google obviously thought it had found a loop around the law, and the French courts saw through it.
will4274 7y ago
There was competition between various technologies, some open (like HTTP, HTML, and the open web) and some closed (like Flash and Silverlight). Open technology (where scraping is just normal use) won the day because users voted with their pocketbooks and overwhelming choose such technologies. French publishers want to have their cake and eat it too - they want to publish to open platforms, because that's what users prefer, but use the threat of legal force to prevent open use of such platforms.
xenocyon 7y ago
Besides the "us vs them" attitude with regard to journalists, HN is often strangely nationalistic as well, so that makes for a double whammy in this case.
- Talanes 7y ago
  We've also got a nice strain of citizen-of-the-world, anti-nation types.
zelly 7y ago
> I get that HN hates journalists, but other than that I don’t see why people are on google’s side here Lots of G employees here.
drenvuk 7y ago
Your misunderstanding of the situation is pretty apparent. Google displays snippets, France says pay up if you display any content that's not a title, legally. Google says "ok but we're still not going to pay" and nixes the snippets and only keeps the title. Court says, that's not how the law should be interpreted even though it's a pretty fair interpretation, pay them anyway for the last 6 months and negotiate. Scraping their work is one thing but there's a difference between linking to their work with enough of a description so that people can decide whether they want to read it or not and using all of it wholesale. Also you're straight up wrong about the ads and the news in France. Google has no ads on google news. That's what this is about. If you want to talk about the discovery app that's a wholly different beast and not under consideration for this law. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I personally think they should just get their French news from Quebec. If there's no lower limit on the amount news agencies can charge google then just get an €1 annual license for content.
- Talanes 7y ago
  >Court says, that's not how the law should be interpreted even though it's a pretty fair interpretation, pay them anyway for the last 6 months and negotiate. They key thing you're missing is that Google DID keep most of it's snippet content by getting the newspapers to sign free agreements. Google WAS given the option to just display nothing, they did not take it.
Eridrus 7y ago
Maybe you can file this under hating journalists, but it seems like a culturally and politically influential industry trying to extract money from everyone else.
travisoneill1 7y ago
Because France said "you can't display snippets unless you pay", so Google stopped displaying snippets. So then France said "you have to display snippets and pay." The object here is obviously not consistent application of the law, but rather extraction of money from Google. Furthermore, there are no ads on Google News.

ac29 7y ago

Google News doesn't have ads. In fact, its primary purpose appears to be to drive traffic to publisher's sites, which do have ads (presumably Google hopes they are Google ads).

pdkl95 7y ago
> Google News doesn't have ads A traditional abuse of monopoly power is providing a good or service at a loss to gain control of a new market.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  how long has Google news been running, I would think they had control of that market long ago if that's what they were aiming for.
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    Indeed they have had control of that market for some time. Being a dominant position over a market generally isn't illegal, but most antitrust laws put restrictions on how that monopoly power can be used.
- qnsi 7y ago
  No. In traditional sense it's having higher not lower price, forcing buyers to pay more. Monopoly by definition already has 100% of the market
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    > it's having higher not lower price, forcing buyers to pay more. Exerting control over a market to raise prices is another traditional method for abusing monopoly power. This isn't what Google is doing re: news. The method I'm referring to is where Google uses their existing monopoly position in one market (search) to exert control over another market (news publishing). See "predatory pricing", "dumping". > Monopoly by definition already has 100% of the market That is one definition. Other definitions are based on having the power to control a market, which doesn't always require having a particular share of a market.
criddell 7y ago
You don't think Google News has any value to Google?
- bagacrap 7y ago
  This interpretation of the law says that Google must pay for the right to direct traffic to a publisher who is running some other ad network's ads (or uses a subscription model). No, I do not think this arrangement has any value to Google, in fact it is obviously negative value.
  - criddell 7y ago
    It isn't obvious to me at all. When you visit a newspaper site via a Google link, Google uses that information to build a more complete profile of you and of what the broader public is interested in right now. Those signals are valuable to Google.

pkaye 7y ago

I don't think news.google.com has any ads.

kevindong 7y ago

I don't necessarily disagree about Google being required to pay publishers to make money off of having snippets of their content in Google News. But requiring Google to both index all websites (in a separate attempt to mitigate the monopoly effect) and requiring Google to pay publishers to include content in search results certainly has a bad smell to it. If Google had the option to not index the websites, then I'd say it's fine.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Talanes 7y ago
Google did have the option. They chose instead to pressure newspapers into signing free agreements to add their content back. Google obviously thought it had found a loop around the law, and the French courts saw through it.

will4274 7y ago

There was competition between various technologies, some open (like HTTP, HTML, and the open web) and some closed (like Flash and Silverlight). Open technology (where scraping is just normal use) won the day because users voted with their pocketbooks and overwhelming choose such technologies. French publishers want to have their cake and eat it too - they want to publish to open platforms, because that's what users prefer, but use the threat of legal force to prevent open use of such platforms.

xenocyon 7y ago

Besides the "us vs them" attitude with regard to journalists, HN is often strangely nationalistic as well, so that makes for a double whammy in this case.

Talanes 7y ago
We've also got a nice strain of citizen-of-the-world, anti-nation types.

zelly 7y ago

> I get that HN hates journalists, but other than that I don’t see why people are on google’s side here Lots of G employees here.

drenvuk 7y ago

Your misunderstanding of the situation is pretty apparent. Google displays snippets, France says pay up if you display any content that's not a title, legally. Google says "ok but we're still not going to pay" and nixes the snippets and only keeps the title. Court says, that's not how the law should be interpreted even though it's a pretty fair interpretation, pay them anyway for the last 6 months and negotiate. Scraping their work is one thing but there's a difference between linking to their work with enough of a description so that people can decide whether they want to read it or not and using all of it wholesale. Also you're straight up wrong about the ads and the news in France. Google has no ads on google news. That's what this is about. If you want to talk about the discovery app that's a wholly different beast and not under consideration for this law. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I personally think they should just get their French news from Quebec. If there's no lower limit on the amount news agencies can charge google then just get an €1 annual license for content.

Talanes 7y ago
>Court says, that's not how the law should be interpreted even though it's a pretty fair interpretation, pay them anyway for the last 6 months and negotiate. They key thing you're missing is that Google DID keep most of it's snippet content by getting the newspapers to sign free agreements. Google WAS given the option to just display nothing, they did not take it.

Eridrus 7y ago

Maybe you can file this under hating journalists, but it seems like a culturally and politically influential industry trying to extract money from everyone else.

travisoneill1 7y ago

Because France said "you can't display snippets unless you pay", so Google stopped displaying snippets. So then France said "you have to display snippets and pay." The object here is obviously not consistent application of the law, but rather extraction of money from Google. Furthermore, there are no ads on Google News.