7 ms·

Typical mainstream coverage of a tech story that glosses over all the detail, leaving everyone in this thread to speculate about all the details, such as which

Typical mainstream coverage of a tech story that glosses over all the detail, leaving everyone in this thread to speculate about all the details, such as which results it applies to and how will they distribute the revenue. My 2p guess is it's all about snippets and any other displayed information which would stop the user proceeding to an external result. Some % of total revenue distributed to owners of the snippet content, though it would be hard to determine the breakdown even for a single result page.

mxxx 6y ago
Yeah, can anyone explain to me how FB/G are actually accused of giving paid content away for free? All the Murdoch content is behind paywalls in Aus. Is it literally just headlines and the free 3 sentences or whatever a scraper/aggregator would display?
- kyleee 6y ago
  Isn't that the perennial problem even with sites like HN? A significant amount of people derive value from reading headlines and short snippets of content?
  - dazc 6y ago
    Isn't this also a method pay-walled sites use to get subscribers? Otherwise, why not just block Google in robots.txt?
    - onli 6y ago
      They still want to be found. They just also want to be paid for the privilege of being listed on a search result page.
    - paulie_a 6y ago
      Google should just start putting a huge red box around pay walled articles. It would basically indicate "don't bother with this site"
      - filoleg 6y ago
        As a user, i would actually love if Google had that feature natively. I assume there is a way to have that functionality already by using some browser extensions. But a native implementation by Google would be a killer feature imo.
        Nasrudith 6y ago
        Implementing it would essentially require the browser knowing if you have logins/subscriptions. Taken further they could personalize searches to only include paywalled sites if you have a login as opposed to marking them as "don't bother".
        paulie_a 6y ago
        Google would only require 2 things. If a site has a paywallz and if the user whitelisted it. I have black listed most paywall sites manually on my Google feed. So they are obviously capable and already doing the latter. And the blacklisting is easy. A click of the button and it's off my list
- bananaface 6y ago
  It's not that they're giving paid content away for free, it's that they're extracting copyrighted content and profiting from it (without compensating the copyright holder). I don't know if it technically falls afoul of existing legislation but clearly the old laws aren't really up to the job of regulating that. They weren't designed for it.
  - consp 6y ago
    > It's not that they're giving paid content away for free, it's that they're extracting copyrighted content and profiting from it (without compensating the copyright holder). Wouldn't that imply that they simply have to pay to be displayed as it would be advertisement? Ergo they will get removed and not get any advertisement anymore as a result.
- AniseAbyss 6y ago
  This is the best way to do it: just paywall your articles. The internet made people believe everything is free. But free news is either propaganda or a disguised ad.
  - SifJar 6y ago
    I don't think that is a fair assessment, there is also free news that is openly ad-supported i.e. there are ads surrounding the news on the page, but the content itself is not advertising anything
    - AniseAbyss 6y ago
      Newspapers are actually not supported by ads, that was always merely a bonus. Most of their income came from subscriptions. Every serious journalist medium is going back to paywalls/subs. If people don't think its worth the money journalism should die but I think it will survive.
      - angry_octet 6y ago
        Unfortunately this is completely false. Biggest contributor used to be real estate, but other advertising was a big contributor.
  - himinlomax 6y ago
    The problem is that they all have their own account management. I'd be ok with paying a subscription service that gave access to several sites and took care of distributing revenue per usage, but managing dozens of subscriptions is a hassle.
    - tomatocracy 6y ago
      Pressreader offers something a bit like that.
lopis 6y ago
> how will they distribute the revenue There won't be any revenue. Ever since France implemented their version of the "meme tax", where a tax would be charged when websites would want to use news snippets, what search engines did was simply drop the snippets. Example: https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=paris https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=paris Google doesn't seem to do this. It's unclear to me if they are paying this fee or just don't care.
- sjy 6y ago
  The exposure draft doesn’t give Google/Facebook the right to opt out by “discriminating” against (ie. dropping) protected news sources. Refusing to comply with this could be punished with an infringement notice under Australian law. https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill%20-%20TREASURY%20LAWS%20AMENDENT%20%28NEWS%20MEDIA%20AND%20DIGITAL%20PLATFORMS%20MANDATORY%20BARGAINING%20CODE%29%20BILL%202020.pdf https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...
  - goseeastarwar 6y ago
    What's the word for racketeering, but when the government does it?
    - DigitalSea 6y ago
      Taxation.
  - coldcode 6y ago
    If this is true, how do you enforce it? Send goons to California to beat it out of them? If Google has no presence in Australia they can simply block the whole country. Or replace the home page with a "Your country is out of order" 404.
    - sjy 6y ago
      Google has a significant presence in Australia, including an office, many employees, data centres, and bank accounts for accepting payments from Australian customers. It would be very unusual for a company like Google to blatantly violate Australian laws and refuse to pay the fines, so it’s unclear how the Australian government would respond if that happened.
octodog 6y ago
https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/draft-news-media-bargaining-code https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/draft-... PDF with draft policy here.

mxxx 6y ago

Yeah, can anyone explain to me how FB/G are actually accused of giving paid content away for free? All the Murdoch content is behind paywalls in Aus. Is it literally just headlines and the free 3 sentences or whatever a scraper/aggregator would display?

kyleee 6y ago
Isn't that the perennial problem even with sites like HN? A significant amount of people derive value from reading headlines and short snippets of content?
- dazc 6y ago
  Isn't this also a method pay-walled sites use to get subscribers? Otherwise, why not just block Google in robots.txt?
  - onli 6y ago
    They still want to be found. They just also want to be paid for the privilege of being listed on a search result page.
  - paulie_a 6y ago
    Google should just start putting a huge red box around pay walled articles. It would basically indicate "don't bother with this site"
    - filoleg 6y ago
      As a user, i would actually love if Google had that feature natively. I assume there is a way to have that functionality already by using some browser extensions. But a native implementation by Google would be a killer feature imo.
      - Nasrudith 6y ago
        Implementing it would essentially require the browser knowing if you have logins/subscriptions. Taken further they could personalize searches to only include paywalled sites if you have a login as opposed to marking them as "don't bother".
        paulie_a 6y ago
        Google would only require 2 things. If a site has a paywallz and if the user whitelisted it. I have black listed most paywall sites manually on my Google feed. So they are obviously capable and already doing the latter. And the blacklisting is easy. A click of the button and it's off my list
bananaface 6y ago
It's not that they're giving paid content away for free, it's that they're extracting copyrighted content and profiting from it (without compensating the copyright holder). I don't know if it technically falls afoul of existing legislation but clearly the old laws aren't really up to the job of regulating that. They weren't designed for it.
- consp 6y ago
  > It's not that they're giving paid content away for free, it's that they're extracting copyrighted content and profiting from it (without compensating the copyright holder). Wouldn't that imply that they simply have to pay to be displayed as it would be advertisement? Ergo they will get removed and not get any advertisement anymore as a result.
AniseAbyss 6y ago
This is the best way to do it: just paywall your articles. The internet made people believe everything is free. But free news is either propaganda or a disguised ad.
- SifJar 6y ago
  I don't think that is a fair assessment, there is also free news that is openly ad-supported i.e. there are ads surrounding the news on the page, but the content itself is not advertising anything
  - AniseAbyss 6y ago
    Newspapers are actually not supported by ads, that was always merely a bonus. Most of their income came from subscriptions. Every serious journalist medium is going back to paywalls/subs. If people don't think its worth the money journalism should die but I think it will survive.
    - angry_octet 6y ago
      Unfortunately this is completely false. Biggest contributor used to be real estate, but other advertising was a big contributor.
- himinlomax 6y ago
  The problem is that they all have their own account management. I'd be ok with paying a subscription service that gave access to several sites and took care of distributing revenue per usage, but managing dozens of subscriptions is a hassle.
  - tomatocracy 6y ago
    Pressreader offers something a bit like that.

lopis 6y ago

> how will they distribute the revenue There won't be any revenue. Ever since France implemented their version of the "meme tax", where a tax would be charged when websites would want to use news snippets, what search engines did was simply drop the snippets. Example: https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=paris https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=paris Google doesn't seem to do this. It's unclear to me if they are paying this fee or just don't care.

sjy 6y ago
The exposure draft doesn’t give Google/Facebook the right to opt out by “discriminating” against (ie. dropping) protected news sources. Refusing to comply with this could be punished with an infringement notice under Australian law. https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill%20-%20TREASURY%20LAWS%20AMENDENT%20%28NEWS%20MEDIA%20AND%20DIGITAL%20PLATFORMS%20MANDATORY%20BARGAINING%20CODE%29%20BILL%202020.pdf https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...
- goseeastarwar 6y ago
  What's the word for racketeering, but when the government does it?
  - DigitalSea 6y ago
    Taxation.
- coldcode 6y ago
  If this is true, how do you enforce it? Send goons to California to beat it out of them? If Google has no presence in Australia they can simply block the whole country. Or replace the home page with a "Your country is out of order" 404.
  - sjy 6y ago
    Google has a significant presence in Australia, including an office, many employees, data centres, and bank accounts for accepting payments from Australian customers. It would be very unusual for a company like Google to blatantly violate Australian laws and refuse to pay the fines, so it’s unclear how the Australian government would respond if that happened.

octodog 6y ago

https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/draft-news-media-bargaining-code https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/draft-... PDF with draft policy here.