4 ms·

Not surprisingly, the article claims are inaccurate. > Australia is introducing a landmark law to make Google, Facebook and potentially other tech companies pa

by ipsum2 6y ago

Not surprisingly, the article claims are inaccurate. > Australia is introducing a landmark law to make Google, Facebook and potentially other tech companies pay media outlets for their news content. No, Australia is trying to get Google to pay any time they link to a news website. The bill text is here: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;page=0;query=BillId:r6652%20Recstruct:billhome https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display..... > (1) For the purposes of this Part, a service makes content available if: 19 (a) the content is reproduced on the service, or is otherwise 20 placed on the service; or 21 (b) a link to the content is provided on the service; or 22 (c) an extract of the content is provided on the service. I wonder what will happen to the Google Australia offices.

NolF 6y ago
Is not even a landmark law... Spain and Germany did it first... My understanding is it didn't work too well for publishers due to the decreased traffic...
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Indeed, the problem is that Google is incredibly powerful, and one country at a time fighting them doesn't work. Google cuts them off until they back down. We basically need a large group of countries to agree, at the same time, to make the same demands, to give Google no choice but to comply, or exit the business. (To some degree, the EU is capable of doing this, but enforcement and interpretation of EU directives can be a bit piecemeal.) It's time for countries to start treating Google more like an enemy foreign power than a mere company, especially if it wants to act on that stage.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    Isn't the point here that Google did exit the business when local laws required it to do so, but that turned out to hurt the media who were previously complaining more than it helped them?
  - koonsolo 6y ago
    You think somebody else will want to build a search engine with these crazy laws? Good luck with that.
- initplus 6y ago
  Overseas, Google told news outlets "wave the fee or we remove your results". The Australian law has a new unique element forbidding this practice.
- ipsum2 6y ago
  The Australian law is different - Google cannot delist/derank the publishers from the search results, so Google is forced to pay or leave.
  - chrismcb 6y ago
    How can this be justified? It sounds like the Australian government is forcing Google to list the links and then charge then for it.
  - anothernewdude 6y ago
    Of course they can remove them from the search results - don't be insane. You do not have to index a website just because they want to get paid. You cannot force a business into a contract nor into a business relationship.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      If you have the guns, you can do what you want. This is the case with australia in australia. Of course google can choose to leave, and they seem to think that would be preferable to paying.
    - ipsum2 6y ago
      According to Australia bill they want to sign into law, Google will be forced to include the links. Which makes sense why Google wants to withdraw from the country.
suifbwish 6y ago
How exactly does a country get off making a law about what the businesses in another country are able to do over the internet? I’m sure there are countries that would like to get rid of free speech and prosecute homosexuality or speaking against a state religion perhaps? Why should we ignore them while listening to Australia’s ridiculous demands for linking to sites available via public DNS?
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  If you want to do business, collect money, or have offices or employees in a sovereign country, you have to follow their laws. If you don't like it, you can leave. It's that straightforward.
  - suifbwish 6y ago
    Sorry. Linking to (not even requesting) a public domain does not give any sovereign nation the right to demand funds. No one who is having funds demanded of them is visiting said country or said site, so no leaving is necessary. It’s frivolous money grabs like this that rob credibility from legitimate intellectual property
    - fogetti 6y ago
      Or conversely having a public domain does not give the right to any private enterprise to do business in a sovereign country. I guess that's a pretty solid argument and that's what most people argue for.
    - gregoryl 6y ago
      Google has offices, employees, multiple registered businesses of various types, and a bunch of physical hardware. They very much are subject to Australian law if they want to stay here. (That said, the law is insane, and neatly demonstrates how badly our politicians are beholden to Murdoch).
- offby37years 6y ago
  No difference to EU dictating GDPR laws.
rstuart4133 6y ago
> No, Australia is trying to get Google to pay any time they link to a news website. Reality is ... always more complicated. The problem they are trying to solve is Google is a monopoly in Australia (government claims 95% market share). The news businesses are a disorganised rabble. And rabble is putting it politely - more like a pack of thieves, stealing content off each other. Being a thief was accepted because it didn't matter business wise. Their business was selling a daily dose of ads printed on dead trees. The "news" they are now fighting over was just the bait printed on those dead trees to entice people to read the ads. (Corollary: you're the product, not the customer goes back way longer than the internet.) Geography limits how far you can distribute dead trees (aka, newspapers), so each newspaper (or "masthead") operated over a limited area: about as far as you can transport a truck load of newspapers between midnight and dawn, so people could read your product over breakfast. Ergo, travel about 200km and any direction, and you were likely to find a new masthead, so there are lots of them, all fiercely independent. The thing they stole of each other, and still steal off each other, is the bait, the "news", the thing they are so pissed off at Google for stealing. They didn't outright steal it of course, it was massaged by what they call a journalist into something that almost identical but side stepped copyright issues. The end result being if you look at two mastheads not too distant from each other, you will see very similar news featured on each. It didn't matter because the thing they were selling was the ads and they had a geographic monopoly. It wasn't stealing, it was cooperative behaviour driven by cost minimisation and it benefited everybody. I exaggerating of course as there is also paid for syndicated news and reprints of press releases, but much of what you read is tarted up tweets, internet posts, and scraped from other papers. It's only bait remember. It could be kitchen floor sweepings for all they care. All that matters is people lap it up, so they read those precious ads. Then Google came along, following the industry practice of stealing content, to the point modifying by reducing it to a sentence or two so copyright didn't apply, but then sold ads to all their customers. Stealing customers and their revenue is a whole other thing. The solution for the news businesses has always been obvious, just negotiate with Google for a price on the news. It's highly unlikely Google would forgo all news in their search engine, and there is only one place they could readily get it: the Australian newspapers. Google is already paying some Australian outlets for their content so they aren't complete Machiavellian pricks. But they are businessmen, so they've tested the market and found there were literally hundreds of outlets all selling the same merchandise and of course they had a highly valuable thing to offer in return: if we link to you, you get to display your ads. The response on the undisciplined rabble was to undercut each other trying to get that lucrative link, driving the price to zero. The ironic thing is Google already gives them the tools they need to withhold their content: robots.txt and other more selective things. Google respects it https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/robots/intro https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/robots/in... , so all they had to do is use it. But like a pack of two years olds tasked with fairly sharing a bag lollies they couldn't, so they asked the government to do it for them. And that's what worked in France: the government rounded them up and forced them to negotiate as a single entity, so it was one monopoly negotiating with another, and after much haggling they came at a price. I'm not a lawyer, but this Australian legislation appears to insisting on one on one negotiations between Google and each newspaper, with the government setting the price if they don't agree. This changes nothing, it’s still a 95% monopoly presented with a turkey shoot, so it’s inevitable they won’t agree. The idea of the Government setting forcing a price when two monopolies could just sort it out between them is I'm guessing what Google objects to, and I'm pretty sympathetic. But now I'm floored. Google has retorted like some spoiled child: well we will just turn off Google search in Australia. It's, well, insane. It's making for great political theatre in Australia. We were regaled with nightly TV news footage of the pollies in parliament milking it for all it's worth (the Prime Ministers response "we make the rules" being just one of them). It's like Google walked into their home ground, and handed over their head on a platter. I don't understand any of this. It's like we are dealing with a couple two year olds whose negotiating skills amount to making demands and throwing tantrums. What are they thinking?

by ipsum2 6y ago

NolF 6y ago

Is not even a landmark law... Spain and Germany did it first... My understanding is it didn't work too well for publishers due to the decreased traffic...

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Indeed, the problem is that Google is incredibly powerful, and one country at a time fighting them doesn't work. Google cuts them off until they back down. We basically need a large group of countries to agree, at the same time, to make the same demands, to give Google no choice but to comply, or exit the business. (To some degree, the EU is capable of doing this, but enforcement and interpretation of EU directives can be a bit piecemeal.) It's time for countries to start treating Google more like an enemy foreign power than a mere company, especially if it wants to act on that stage.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Isn't the point here that Google did exit the business when local laws required it to do so, but that turned out to hurt the media who were previously complaining more than it helped them?
- koonsolo 6y ago
  You think somebody else will want to build a search engine with these crazy laws? Good luck with that.
initplus 6y ago
Overseas, Google told news outlets "wave the fee or we remove your results". The Australian law has a new unique element forbidding this practice.
ipsum2 6y ago
The Australian law is different - Google cannot delist/derank the publishers from the search results, so Google is forced to pay or leave.
- chrismcb 6y ago
  How can this be justified? It sounds like the Australian government is forcing Google to list the links and then charge then for it.
- anothernewdude 6y ago
  Of course they can remove them from the search results - don't be insane. You do not have to index a website just because they want to get paid. You cannot force a business into a contract nor into a business relationship.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    If you have the guns, you can do what you want. This is the case with australia in australia. Of course google can choose to leave, and they seem to think that would be preferable to paying.
  - ipsum2 6y ago
    According to Australia bill they want to sign into law, Google will be forced to include the links. Which makes sense why Google wants to withdraw from the country.

suifbwish 6y ago

How exactly does a country get off making a law about what the businesses in another country are able to do over the internet? I’m sure there are countries that would like to get rid of free speech and prosecute homosexuality or speaking against a state religion perhaps? Why should we ignore them while listening to Australia’s ridiculous demands for linking to sites available via public DNS?

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
If you want to do business, collect money, or have offices or employees in a sovereign country, you have to follow their laws. If you don't like it, you can leave. It's that straightforward.
- suifbwish 6y ago
  Sorry. Linking to (not even requesting) a public domain does not give any sovereign nation the right to demand funds. No one who is having funds demanded of them is visiting said country or said site, so no leaving is necessary. It’s frivolous money grabs like this that rob credibility from legitimate intellectual property
  - fogetti 6y ago
    Or conversely having a public domain does not give the right to any private enterprise to do business in a sovereign country. I guess that's a pretty solid argument and that's what most people argue for.
  - gregoryl 6y ago
    Google has offices, employees, multiple registered businesses of various types, and a bunch of physical hardware. They very much are subject to Australian law if they want to stay here. (That said, the law is insane, and neatly demonstrates how badly our politicians are beholden to Murdoch).
offby37years 6y ago
No difference to EU dictating GDPR laws.

rstuart4133 6y ago

> No, Australia is trying to get Google to pay any time they link to a news website. Reality is ... always more complicated. The problem they are trying to solve is Google is a monopoly in Australia (government claims 95% market share). The news businesses are a disorganised rabble. And rabble is putting it politely - more like a pack of thieves, stealing content off each other. Being a thief was accepted because it didn't matter business wise. Their business was selling a daily dose of ads printed on dead trees. The "news" they are now fighting over was just the bait printed on those dead trees to entice people to read the ads. (Corollary: you're the product, not the customer goes back way longer than the internet.) Geography limits how far you can distribute dead trees (aka, newspapers), so each newspaper (or "masthead") operated over a limited area: about as far as you can transport a truck load of newspapers between midnight and dawn, so people could read your product over breakfast. Ergo, travel about 200km and any direction, and you were likely to find a new masthead, so there are lots of them, all fiercely independent. The thing they stole of each other, and still steal off each other, is the bait, the "news", the thing they are so pissed off at Google for stealing. They didn't outright steal it of course, it was massaged by what they call a journalist into something that almost identical but side stepped copyright issues. The end result being if you look at two mastheads not too distant from each other, you will see very similar news featured on each. It didn't matter because the thing they were selling was the ads and they had a geographic monopoly. It wasn't stealing, it was cooperative behaviour driven by cost minimisation and it benefited everybody. I exaggerating of course as there is also paid for syndicated news and reprints of press releases, but much of what you read is tarted up tweets, internet posts, and scraped from other papers. It's only bait remember. It could be kitchen floor sweepings for all they care. All that matters is people lap it up, so they read those precious ads. Then Google came along, following the industry practice of stealing content, to the point modifying by reducing it to a sentence or two so copyright didn't apply, but then sold ads to all their customers. Stealing customers and their revenue is a whole other thing. The solution for the news businesses has always been obvious, just negotiate with Google for a price on the news. It's highly unlikely Google would forgo all news in their search engine, and there is only one place they could readily get it: the Australian newspapers. Google is already paying some Australian outlets for their content so they aren't complete Machiavellian pricks. But they are businessmen, so they've tested the market and found there were literally hundreds of outlets all selling the same merchandise and of course they had a highly valuable thing to offer in return: if we link to you, you get to display your ads. The response on the undisciplined rabble was to undercut each other trying to get that lucrative link, driving the price to zero. The ironic thing is Google already gives them the tools they need to withhold their content: robots.txt and other more selective things. Google respects it https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/robots/intro https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/robots/in... , so all they had to do is use it. But like a pack of two years olds tasked with fairly sharing a bag lollies they couldn't, so they asked the government to do it for them. And that's what worked in France: the government rounded them up and forced them to negotiate as a single entity, so it was one monopoly negotiating with another, and after much haggling they came at a price. I'm not a lawyer, but this Australian legislation appears to insisting on one on one negotiations between Google and each newspaper, with the government setting the price if they don't agree. This changes nothing, it’s still a 95% monopoly presented with a turkey shoot, so it’s inevitable they won’t agree. The idea of the Government setting forcing a price when two monopolies could just sort it out between them is I'm guessing what Google objects to, and I'm pretty sympathetic. But now I'm floored. Google has retorted like some spoiled child: well we will just turn off Google search in Australia. It's, well, insane. It's making for great political theatre in Australia. We were regaled with nightly TV news footage of the pollies in parliament milking it for all it's worth (the Prime Ministers response "we make the rules" being just one of them). It's like Google walked into their home ground, and handed over their head on a platter. I don't understand any of this. It's like we are dealing with a couple two year olds whose negotiating skills amount to making demands and throwing tantrums. What are they thinking?