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> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so. > Google wi

by gundmc 6y ago

> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so. > Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so. I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter. They didn't mention charging for services at all. They said "the free services you use may be at risk". Given the context, I took that to mean the quality of the service would tank if they had to share their algorithm changes. The data portion is a little less clear. Google was very weasel wordy - they definitely wanted it to sound like they would have to turn over user data, but if you read carefully they only say they would have to share data about how they collect the user data.

ImaCake 6y ago
They certainly imply they will either be removing services or putting them behind a paywall. Some choice quotes from the google letter: > Hurting the free services you use ... demands that would put our free services at risk.
- mikemotherwell 6y ago
  That implies Google will change what Australians see vs other countries. No more. No less. Some possibile outcomes: Imagine a page with only foreign results. Plenty of news entities cover Australian news, and a result like this: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=victoria+australia+covid https://www.google.com.au/search?q=victoria+australia+covid could very easily nix the news box, and any and all Australian news results and content. Google could take the attitude that all Australian news sites that require payment have a robots.txt with: Disallow: / I can't imagine any law that both demands Google crawl sites AND demands payment for it will survive being contested in the courts. You can't both compel and enforce - it is one or tother, and if it costs Google to crawl your site, why should Google crawl your site? I can see a news site, like The Guardian, agreeing to give Google their news for free, and getting all the SERP links as a consequence. I can imagine Google doing deals with all manner of sites for nothing, where the value of 100% of News traffic from Google is likely millions. I have no idea what the proposal of the ACCC is (and I'm Australian) but this seems a really weird case, where the unintended consequences could be almost anything, and the likely outcome is more likely to be bad for Australian sites than beneficial.
  - docdeek 6y ago
    My first thought was that Google would do as per Spain and just stop linking Australian news outlets. However, I was under the impression that the Australian proposition does not allow Google to treat foreign sites differently. Hence, if they carry foreign news they must carry Australian sites - and pay. Or else carry nothing at all.
    - visarga 6y ago
      > I was under the impression that the Australian proposition does not allow Google to treat foreign sites differently. Hence, if they carry foreign news they must carry Australian sites Why, if they want to carry news from other countries, should they also have to carry Australian news? Maybe they should just string match all their news results to Australian news so nothing gets through, even if they appear on third party sites (duplicate detection, they had it for years on regular search).
      - dodobirdlord 6y ago
        > Why, if they want to carry news from other countries, should they also have to carry Australian news? Because the law says so, because the law is very deliberately crafted as a mechanism to force Google to give money to Australian news companies.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    >That implies Google will change what Australians see vs other countries. No more. No less. The letter is a threat, and it makes its threat by implication. The benefit of implying a threat is that it allows you to make any number of veiled threats without committing to any. If they wanted to say no more, no less, they would make a specific threat, but they want people to worry about things, so they make a vague threat. So any possible threat that a reasonable person might suppose is meant by the letter achieves what Google wants with its letter. Australia has decided to take one of these potential threats and answer it, to make Google look bad, but it might also force Google to say that is not what we mean, the implied threat made more precise looses its power to frighten. Of course none of this jockeying for position changes the fact that Australia is trying to pass a very bad law.
rsa25519 6y ago
> I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter. Agreed. And because this ACCC response doesn't link to the letter, I think these rebuttals to non-existent claims are deceptively misleading
- arethuza 6y ago
  Isn't that a basic tactic in political communications: when asked a question provide the answer you want to give not the answer to the question you were asked?
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    Similar to "strawman" in online forums, right
    - arethuza 6y ago
      More "message discipline" I suspect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_discipline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_discipline
      - mthoms 6y ago
        Interesting. I wonder who coined that phrase? It's a curiously positive sounding phrase for something that's actually quite nefarious.
        CarbyAu 6y ago
        The discipline, applied to its own name. :-)
        cutemonster 6y ago
        arethusa, thanks, interesting. I guess this is something taught in paid classes to business leaders and politicians, so they want a positively sounding name. Also, except for when the person has evil / corrupted intentions, then, is this technique neutral or sometimes even good Can at least save time via fever of topic discussions
extropy 6y ago
The bill says Google needs to make available "a list and explanation of the data the digital platform service collects". This is quite ambiguous if it is just a collection policy or the data itself. I can see Google being fired up about that but should be something that can be clarified ( there is public consultation going on ) not whined about.
pulse7 6y ago
Google Open Letter is too high-level. After reading it you can't claim/prove much based on it. There are no details. Just high-level: "search is at risk", "data may be at risk", etc. For me, this is just a bone thrown to spark a political debate...
- sukilot 6y ago
  It shows the strength of the their best argument.
  - bananaface 6y ago
    Ehh, disagree. It just shows what kind of PR they think most people respond to.
rstuart4133 6y ago
Somehow everyone misses this little gem in the draft bill [0]: > 52S.(1).(a) ensure that the registered news business corporation is provided with flexible content moderation tools that allow the registered news business corporation to remove or filter comments on the registered news business covered news content that: > . . (i) are made using the digital platform service;and > . . (ii) are made on a part of the digital platform service that is set up and able to be edited by the registered news business; > (b) ensure that the registered news business corporation can disable the making of such comments; If I'm reading that correctly, if someone posts a news corporation to Facebook, the news corporation gets to delete / edit / moderate any Facebook replies. I think they (the legislators) have lost the plot. In another section the draft legislation requires Facebook / Google to notify the news organisation of changes to their page rank / feed algorithm, and also provide advice on how to mitigate the effects of those changes. Google's claim the bill grants news media business special privileges no other organisation on the planet has is not too far from the truth. [0] 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...
- ajdlinux 6y ago
  To me that sounds like it's intended to cover comments made on posts on the news business's own Facebook page, rather than comments made on other pages or personal profiles, etc.
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    Agreed, that’s what the clause (ii) restriction is for.
    - justsee 6y ago
      When you consider the wider legal context, this also makes sense* . This is because Facebook requires page owners to assume all liability for comments. This has resulted in publishers losing defamation cases based on third-party comments made on their posts [1]. * (regardless of whether you feel, as I do, that the proposed legislation is a politically-motivated protection racket for a favoured media mogul) [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/01/australian-media-companies-face-defamation-liability-for-comments-on-facebook-after-court-dismisses-appeal https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/01/australian-med...
roenxi 6y ago
Weaselly words or otherwise, there is a big power imbalance here. The ACCC can ultimately make Google do what it wants and is backed by a government on this matter. Google has no control over the ACCC. The ACCC is being irresponsible not dealing with - in precise terms - what Google actually said. Anything less verges on bullying. This isn't a public shouting match between equals.
- zokier 6y ago
  > The ACCC can ultimately make Google do what it wants and is backed by a government on this matter Not really. Google could just exit Australia. And who you think that would hurt more, Australia or Google?
  - ajdlinux 6y ago
    As long as the proposed regulations don't make Google's Australian operations completely unprofitable, they won't.
    - dodobirdlord 6y ago
      Based on the last time this was up on HN I recall the news company lobby estimated that Google would be required to pay something like $1B/year, which is certainly far more money than they make off of news-related searches originating in Australia. The law has some prohibitions on Google substituting Australian news with news from sources in other countries, but I think it doesn’t go so far as to say that Google has to continue to serve news searches. Abandoning the country entirely might be a stretch, given how many other products would be impacted, but disabling news results entirely or declining searches that seem to be looking for news would not be surprising. The law is clearly deliberately vague to give both the government and the news companies the upper hand against Google in any sort of legal dispute, but I think Google would be within its rights to take this to court and demand an enumerated list of all of the news companies in Australia (since the law says the government is planning to make a list) and a list of all of the international sources of news that Google is prohibited from substituting, then stop serving results from either in Australia.
taneq 6y ago
> They said "the free services you use may be at risk". This sounds more like a threat. "If you don't give us whatever data we want, for free, then we will cut you off from some of our online services as punishment. > Given the context, I took that to mean the quality of the service would tank if they had to share their algorithm changes. I see this argument from them all the time and honestly, I see very little evidence of it. I use DDG exclusively now but I used Google and DDG side by side for a while as I was transitioning over, and during that time I didn't see much variation in the quality of results. If anything, being in a filter bubble made it harder to find new information.
- h2onock 6y ago
  > This sounds more like a threat. "If you don't give us whatever data we want, for free, then we will cut you off from some of our online services as punishment. Or start charging for things that used to be free, like news results.

by gundmc 6y ago

ImaCake 6y ago

They certainly imply they will either be removing services or putting them behind a paywall. Some choice quotes from the google letter: > Hurting the free services you use ... demands that would put our free services at risk.

mikemotherwell 6y ago
That implies Google will change what Australians see vs other countries. No more. No less. Some possibile outcomes: Imagine a page with only foreign results. Plenty of news entities cover Australian news, and a result like this: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=victoria+australia+covid https://www.google.com.au/search?q=victoria+australia+covid could very easily nix the news box, and any and all Australian news results and content. Google could take the attitude that all Australian news sites that require payment have a robots.txt with: Disallow: / I can't imagine any law that both demands Google crawl sites AND demands payment for it will survive being contested in the courts. You can't both compel and enforce - it is one or tother, and if it costs Google to crawl your site, why should Google crawl your site? I can see a news site, like The Guardian, agreeing to give Google their news for free, and getting all the SERP links as a consequence. I can imagine Google doing deals with all manner of sites for nothing, where the value of 100% of News traffic from Google is likely millions. I have no idea what the proposal of the ACCC is (and I'm Australian) but this seems a really weird case, where the unintended consequences could be almost anything, and the likely outcome is more likely to be bad for Australian sites than beneficial.
- docdeek 6y ago
  My first thought was that Google would do as per Spain and just stop linking Australian news outlets. However, I was under the impression that the Australian proposition does not allow Google to treat foreign sites differently. Hence, if they carry foreign news they must carry Australian sites - and pay. Or else carry nothing at all.
  - visarga 6y ago
    > I was under the impression that the Australian proposition does not allow Google to treat foreign sites differently. Hence, if they carry foreign news they must carry Australian sites Why, if they want to carry news from other countries, should they also have to carry Australian news? Maybe they should just string match all their news results to Australian news so nothing gets through, even if they appear on third party sites (duplicate detection, they had it for years on regular search).
    - dodobirdlord 6y ago
      > Why, if they want to carry news from other countries, should they also have to carry Australian news? Because the law says so, because the law is very deliberately crafted as a mechanism to force Google to give money to Australian news companies.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  >That implies Google will change what Australians see vs other countries. No more. No less. The letter is a threat, and it makes its threat by implication. The benefit of implying a threat is that it allows you to make any number of veiled threats without committing to any. If they wanted to say no more, no less, they would make a specific threat, but they want people to worry about things, so they make a vague threat. So any possible threat that a reasonable person might suppose is meant by the letter achieves what Google wants with its letter. Australia has decided to take one of these potential threats and answer it, to make Google look bad, but it might also force Google to say that is not what we mean, the implied threat made more precise looses its power to frighten. Of course none of this jockeying for position changes the fact that Australia is trying to pass a very bad law.

rsa25519 6y ago

> I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter. Agreed. And because this ACCC response doesn't link to the letter, I think these rebuttals to non-existent claims are deceptively misleading

arethuza 6y ago
Isn't that a basic tactic in political communications: when asked a question provide the answer you want to give not the answer to the question you were asked?
- cutemonster 6y ago
  Similar to "strawman" in online forums, right
  - arethuza 6y ago
    More "message discipline" I suspect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_discipline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_discipline
    - mthoms 6y ago
      Interesting. I wonder who coined that phrase? It's a curiously positive sounding phrase for something that's actually quite nefarious.
      - CarbyAu 6y ago
        The discipline, applied to its own name. :-)
        cutemonster 6y ago
        arethusa, thanks, interesting. I guess this is something taught in paid classes to business leaders and politicians, so they want a positively sounding name. Also, except for when the person has evil / corrupted intentions, then, is this technique neutral or sometimes even good Can at least save time via fever of topic discussions

extropy 6y ago

The bill says Google needs to make available "a list and explanation of the data the digital platform service collects". This is quite ambiguous if it is just a collection policy or the data itself. I can see Google being fired up about that but should be something that can be clarified ( there is public consultation going on ) not whined about.

pulse7 6y ago

Google Open Letter is too high-level. After reading it you can't claim/prove much based on it. There are no details. Just high-level: "search is at risk", "data may be at risk", etc. For me, this is just a bone thrown to spark a political debate...

sukilot 6y ago
It shows the strength of the their best argument.
- bananaface 6y ago
  Ehh, disagree. It just shows what kind of PR they think most people respond to.

rstuart4133 6y ago

Somehow everyone misses this little gem in the draft bill [0]: > 52S.(1).(a) ensure that the registered news business corporation is provided with flexible content moderation tools that allow the registered news business corporation to remove or filter comments on the registered news business covered news content that: > . . (i) are made using the digital platform service;and > . . (ii) are made on a part of the digital platform service that is set up and able to be edited by the registered news business; > (b) ensure that the registered news business corporation can disable the making of such comments; If I'm reading that correctly, if someone posts a news corporation to Facebook, the news corporation gets to delete / edit / moderate any Facebook replies. I think they (the legislators) have lost the plot. In another section the draft legislation requires Facebook / Google to notify the news organisation of changes to their page rank / feed algorithm, and also provide advice on how to mitigate the effects of those changes. Google's claim the bill grants news media business special privileges no other organisation on the planet has is not too far from the truth. [0] 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...

ajdlinux 6y ago
To me that sounds like it's intended to cover comments made on posts on the news business's own Facebook page, rather than comments made on other pages or personal profiles, etc.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  Agreed, that’s what the clause (ii) restriction is for.
  - justsee 6y ago
    When you consider the wider legal context, this also makes sense* . This is because Facebook requires page owners to assume all liability for comments. This has resulted in publishers losing defamation cases based on third-party comments made on their posts [1]. * (regardless of whether you feel, as I do, that the proposed legislation is a politically-motivated protection racket for a favoured media mogul) [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/01/australian-media-companies-face-defamation-liability-for-comments-on-facebook-after-court-dismisses-appeal https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/01/australian-med...

roenxi 6y ago

Weaselly words or otherwise, there is a big power imbalance here. The ACCC can ultimately make Google do what it wants and is backed by a government on this matter. Google has no control over the ACCC. The ACCC is being irresponsible not dealing with - in precise terms - what Google actually said. Anything less verges on bullying. This isn't a public shouting match between equals.

zokier 6y ago
> The ACCC can ultimately make Google do what it wants and is backed by a government on this matter Not really. Google could just exit Australia. And who you think that would hurt more, Australia or Google?
- ajdlinux 6y ago
  As long as the proposed regulations don't make Google's Australian operations completely unprofitable, they won't.
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    Based on the last time this was up on HN I recall the news company lobby estimated that Google would be required to pay something like $1B/year, which is certainly far more money than they make off of news-related searches originating in Australia. The law has some prohibitions on Google substituting Australian news with news from sources in other countries, but I think it doesn’t go so far as to say that Google has to continue to serve news searches. Abandoning the country entirely might be a stretch, given how many other products would be impacted, but disabling news results entirely or declining searches that seem to be looking for news would not be surprising. The law is clearly deliberately vague to give both the government and the news companies the upper hand against Google in any sort of legal dispute, but I think Google would be within its rights to take this to court and demand an enumerated list of all of the news companies in Australia (since the law says the government is planning to make a list) and a list of all of the international sources of news that Google is prohibited from substituting, then stop serving results from either in Australia.

taneq 6y ago

> They said "the free services you use may be at risk". This sounds more like a threat. "If you don't give us whatever data we want, for free, then we will cut you off from some of our online services as punishment. > Given the context, I took that to mean the quality of the service would tank if they had to share their algorithm changes. I see this argument from them all the time and honestly, I see very little evidence of it. I use DDG exclusively now but I used Google and DDG side by side for a while as I was transitioning over, and during that time I didn't see much variation in the quality of results. If anything, being in a filter bubble made it harder to find new information.

h2onock 6y ago
> This sounds more like a threat. "If you don't give us whatever data we want, for free, then we will cut you off from some of our online services as punishment. Or start charging for things that used to be free, like news results.