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Cheaper to pay $1bn to Murdoch than loose all the ad revenue from Australia.
by monkeynotes 6y ago
Cheaper to pay $1bn to Murdoch than loose all the ad revenue from Australia.
- kortilla 6y agoOnce a protection racket works, it doesn’t tend to discourage others.
- ehsankia 6y agoThat's assuming that they won't coming back begging once they realize that they need Google much more than Google needs them. Ad revenue from news sites from Australia is a slice of a slice for Google. For the news company, it's probably 90% of their traffic.
- libertine 6y agoUh-oh... if all news sites had a drop of 90% of traffic pretty sure the monopoly bells would start ringing! If this is being done on purpose to make a case, it's a goddamn genius move - next level chess. Google could be in a tight spot.
- kmeisthax 6y agoIs it ordinarily the case for competition law in Australia to require someone with monopoly power to do business with someone when their prices increase dramatically?
- ehsankia 6y agoI'm not an expert, but I'm not sure if that applies here. Google isn't in the business of making news, and isn't competing with these news companies directly. If you get 90% of the traffic to your portfolio from my blog, does that make me a monopoly too?
- Nasrudith 6y agoI don't get it - isn't that giving them exactly what they claim to want? "You say we are unfairly dominating? Fine we'll leave and let competitors take our place." Not competing at all in a market (barring reciprocial cartel territory divisuon) is the exact opposite of anti-competive behavior. They aren't even existing there to harm them! At worst it would be monosopy and again they provided the remedy, reducing their "buying share" of the market to 0%. It is essentially the ultimate calling of a bluff by not sticking around to be their scapegoat.