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Australia to introduce Google, Facebook legislation to parliament next week

• jonny383 6y ago
  Does that mean when I pull out my iPhone to search, Google will no longer work? Bring on bing I suppose
  • guidedlight 6y ago
    Who knows. Google is almost certainly bluffing, they wouldn’t pull search from Australia. Especially if that meant conceding the entire market to Bing.
    • franciscop 6y ago
      People said the same about Google News in Spain and here we are, Google News doesn't exist anymore in Spain.
      • sumedh 6y ago
        So has the behaviour of people changed? Do they go directly to the news sites or to Bing?
        • franciscop 6y ago
          It has changed to favour traditional big papers instead of smaller ones, since yes people go directly to the bigger sites now. Barely anyone goes or even knows what Bing is in Spain.
    • michaelt 6y ago
      Eh, they were willing to pull out of China. And there's plenty of other countries that would be eager to get money out of Google if Australia shows a method that works. Of course, China didn't fold when Google pulled out so it's questionable whether they consider that a winning strategy or not.
  • geogra4 6y ago
    On a slightly related note I really wish that Microsoft would have done with mobile what they did with edge. A Microsoft branded aosp with Microsoft services.
• geogra4 6y ago
  Interesting that Microsoft says they're ready to go to replace Google.
• wwww4all 6y ago
  Google and Facebooks has become political organizations that support leftist views and support censorship of conservatives. They will treated as such from other countries now. They made their bed, now they have to lie in them. US needs to use anti trust laws to break up all FAANG companies. Like they used anti trust laws to push for breakup of Microsoft many years ago.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• guidedlight 6y ago
  If this is successful, we can expect many other countries to follow suit Australia’s lead.
• roenxi 6y ago
  This legislation will make the day-to-day existence of Australians worse. However there is an argument that the price to pay might be acceptable if it pushes Google away from the Australian market. Strategically, these companies are a huge risk of foreign political interference.
  • geogra4 6y ago
    Well tbf they didn't need Google back in the 70s to remove Whitlam
  • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
    Let's talk foreign political interference: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/19/turnbull-warned-rupert-murdoch-trying-remove-him-prime-minister https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/19/turnb... There's still some power in the dinosaurs. This also indicates to me that this kind of thing has been going on for decades, and it's just the advent of the Internet (somewhat ironically) that's allowed for this kind of information to leak out to a larger percentage of the population (but not a large enough percentage to affect the election result, as it turns out).
    • roenxi 6y ago
      Google has world class influence in multiple fields: * Search engine * Email * Operating systems (through Android) * Web hosting (Google cloud) They also made a serious play into social organisation with Google+. Murduch controls a broadcast business which tells people what to think using mass media. I don't like that. But Google is more threatening, and its strategy is more threatening, no matter what you want to argue News Media has done. Murdoch isn't reading my work emails, doesn't control infrastructure my company relies on, doesn't track the physical location of my friends and associates. Google does. Google's potential for political activism is more scary.
      • bryan_w 6y ago
        But if Google leaves, Microsoft steps into place. How is anyone better off? All Australia gets is one less competitor in the market
• djrobstep 6y ago
  For non-Australians: A small number of media companies (often Murdoch-owned but others too) absolutely run the country. They'll do whatever is necessary to support Australia's ruling class, and the government will reward them handsomely in return, even it it means displeasing tech giants.
  • aneemzic 6y ago
    I can't wait until they realize all the money they spend lobbying resulted in a law that will remove the majority of their traffic and what's left of their ad revenue. Nobody is replacing Facebook in the Australian market, and no search company is going to open them up the financial risk of unknown third parties deciding prices for literally linking to their pay-walled news sites. Microsoft won't, but they'll happily take free market share for doing nothing. This is a prime example of why the government should not get involved in b2b. The incompetence of the government never ceases to amaze me.
    • fakedang 6y ago
      Who knows, maybe Murdoch realized he has a shit legacy, hence is trying to save Austria from his own creations by handicapping them. /s Or on a more serious note, he just likes power, regardless of how much his businesses would lose.
    • konjin 6y ago
      There is literally no way that we the people can't win. Either google gets slapped and stops being a parasite that lives in the cracks of copyright law, or newscorp dies. This is the definition of a win win situation.
      • throwaways885 6y ago
        > Either google gets slapped and stops being a parasite that lives in the cracks of copyright law, or newscorp dies. Seriously? Snippets are clearly fair use. The open web has operated on those principles for decades. You're doing the same as those who cheered on software patents. I don't care if Facebook and Google are the targets, ultimately this takes rights away from all of us and will undoubtedly spread out of Australia if it goes well. Best thing that can happen is News Corp collapses and other countries stay away from legislating the internet.
• kbcool 6y ago
  Google are scared. I don't think they will go as far as withdrawing search (note: it's just search not their 3 million other products) from Australia. But it does set a scary precedent for them. To repurpose their analogy in the scare campaigns they are running in Australia: Currently when you ask about the best coffee shop in the area. Google runs down the road, taking a sample of the coffee from the local shops and fills you up with coffee then tries to sell you a bunch of related stuff. With this legislation Google will have to pay the coffee shops for the samples. It's a small step but Google have been profiting from "borrowed" content for the best part of a decade. They need to pay.
  • nindalf 6y ago
    HN is literally an aggregator - should dang and co pay websites for this privilege of linking to other websites? And lest anyone claim HN should be exempted because it’s “free”, this website is ad supported. They run job ads for YCombinator companies. There’s no shortage of revenue at YC, which they should share with publishers, according to your ideas. Or do we recognise that freely linking to the rest of the web is how the internet become useful to the world?
    • georgebarnett 6y ago
      HN doesn’t provide snippet summaries of linked articles so you don’t have to click through.
      • nindalf 6y ago
        That’s funny, because it feels like every HN thread contains a sizeable portion of people who comment on the headline without reading the article. This is a running joke on Reddit too. How much revenue did Reuters miss out on because people in this thread just commented without clicking through? Do dang and pg owe money to Reuters now for foregone revenue?
        • abdullahkhalids 6y ago
          This recent essay by Cory Doctorow talks about how owning lots of small author monopolies can be converted into a market monopoly [0], is very similar to the following argument. The contents of the <url> tag of a page are metadata, and I think we can agree that authors don't have copyright derived monopoly over them. Anyone can share a list of titles without violating any copyright laws, and no revenue is lost because that intellectual property does not really belong to the author. But if I start sending everyone small but different snippets of the article, as per their search term so they don't have to visit the website, I am no longer within the ambit of fair use of copyright. The intent behind the fair use clause is the same snippet is shown to everyone, so in a vast majority of cases there is no loss of revenue and we can ignore the edge cases. Here google has used the edge cases ignored by the law and turned them into a multi-billion dollar business (with at least some part of it lost by the owners of the copyright). [0] https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/ https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/
• docdeek 6y ago
  A few months back Facebook announced that they would respond to the draft code becoming law by just not allowing news stories to be shared in Australia: "Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram.” [1] Google has also threatened/promised that it would pull Google Search from Australia if the code passes (though, like FB, it suggested this was a worst-case scenario. [2] As an Aussie ex-pat, I'm fascinated to see what happens if both FB and Google go through with these worst case scenarios. It would make for a different Facebook experience, I imagine, and it would radically change the search market in Oz where Google has around 90% of the market. [3] Personally, I think that it will hurt the media in Oz a lot more than it will hurt FB or Google. People looking for news will find ways to get around the 'Google/FB blackout' just like people in Oz have been finding ways to watch US TV shows and VPN/proxy into foreign Netflix sites for years. Maybe everyone will be back to the bargaining table after the 12 month review with a little more honesty about how much of their traffic comes because of Google and FB, and not how much they believe is lost to them. [1]: https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/changes-to-facebooks-services-in-australia/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/changes-to-facebooks-servi... [2]: https://mumbrella.com.au/withdrawal-isnt-a-threat-its-a-worst-case-scenario-google-and-facebook-respond-to-senate-committee-queries-668274 https://mumbrella.com.au/withdrawal-isnt-a-threat-its-a-wors... [3]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/220534/googles-share-of-search-market-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/220534/googles-share-of-...
  • soco 6y ago
    I agree media consume will be affected by the lack of FB stories, and search habits will have to adapt to DDG or more likely to Bing. But why should will affect that dramatically the media? It's not like their websites are taken down or some firewalls will block outside outlets.
  • Talanes 6y ago
    >Personally, I think that it will hurt the media in Oz a lot more than it will hurt FB or Google. People looking for news will find ways to get around the 'Google/FB blackout' One doesn't seem to follow logically from the other. Surely people going around FB/Google and still getting the news would be good for media and bad for FB/Google?
• franciscop 6y ago
  Something I don't understand, is it only for Google and Facebook, or would it affect other search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo?
  • shakna 6y ago
    The legislation applies to a list of companies to be designated by the Minister. At this point in time, it appears that the Minister will only be designating Google and Facebook. (The Minister has spoken with Microsoft, and it appears that they were "happy" with the result, and there hasn't been a suggestion that they will be asked to comply.)
    • franciscop 6y ago
      Unfortunately IMHO this is horrible. Having a white-list/black-list of companies like this seems to give despotic power to the Minister and prime-time for corruption. Even if it can be gamed/biased (by both sides), I'd strongly prefer a general "by-metrics" like "search engines made by corporations over X millions" and then let the courts decide on abuse.
      • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
        Welcome to the current state of Australian politics
      • SecurityLagoon 6y ago
        Yup. Triggering this legislation on who the company is rather than what they are doing is ridiculous and loses any credibility it has.
• underwater 6y ago
  The legislation is absolute trash, but Google's response as been absolutely abysmal. They spent multiple days inserting unremovable yellow banners on top of every search results page for every Australian that directed everyone to YouTube. Their spokesperson spoke to users like they were kindergarten children; their literal argument was that the legislation would be "like if you had to pay to tell your friends about a new coffee shop"[1]. They also started running "tests" where they would silently blackhole Australian news sites for a subset of users. They simply pretended that ABC.net.au didn't exist, even though 90% of the content on that site is not news. I don't know what their PR team were thinking, but they've successfully demonstrated that they both have too much power and neither respect nor care about their end users. [1] https://youtu.be/dHypeuHePEI?t=56s https://youtu.be/dHypeuHePEI?t=56s
  • geogra4 6y ago
    >they've successfully demonstrated that they both have too much power and don't give a shit about their end users. This is the fundamental problem with Google, period.
    • fakedang 6y ago
      Strictly my opinion but I can't help thinking that current Google leadership seems way more incompetent than the Ballmer decade at MSFT. At least Ballmer can attribute his incompetence to being overly cautious after the antitrust case. On a tangential note, honest question to people here. If Microsoft was fined for bundling the Internet Explorer browser along with Windows in 1997, why is it that I can't remove Chrome from Android or Safari from iOS or Edge from Windows today? I'm largely stranger to US antitrust laws.
      • eric-hu 6y ago
        Probably has to do with Windows market share being far bigger in the 90’s.
      • docdeek 6y ago
        Not sure about Chrome and Android, but iOS global market share is still very low (15%). In my country it is higher (about a third of the market) but nowhere near the market share of Windows in the 1990s. IANAL but this could be part of it.
• freakynit 6y ago
  My opinion: "It's good these tech behemoths are being pushed-back. They have stifled competition for much long now just by having so many resources at their disposal and using those all together. You just can't compete with that kind of abundance. These behemoths, when left even for a few months, would make way for other competitors to spring up, and at least have a marginal chance of winning. Without they leaving, this just seem to not happen"
  • nindalf 6y ago
    “Did you just quote yourself? Why not just say that without the quotes?” - nindalf
• weissed 6y ago
  "Software giant Microsoft Corp said was confident its search product Bing could fill the gap in Australia if Google withdrew." This is opportunistic at best and a bad idea for the internet long term. Shame Microsoft is encouraging this only to gain market share.
  • creato 6y ago
    This is nothing compared to obliging the Chinese government when Google backed out there.
  • thu2111 6y ago
    I don't think that particular statement expresses an opinion on whether it's good or bad one way or another, just an observation that this law of attainder would block Google and not them, and that they have a working search engine. Probably Microsoft know that they don't do anything very different to Google, that they have lots of money and News Corp might come after them next, so I'd expect them to not be really rejoicing either.
  • Ardren 6y ago
    I'm a little confused, why is Bing exempt from this new law? Edit: Okay, they are exempt because they are not called Google or Facebook. I didn't realise the law was only going to be applied to two companies by name. Which, I don't know, doesn't sound like how laws should work?
    • marcus_holmes 6y ago
      And what happens when Bing is serving everyone their news and News Corp is still not making any money? Do they extend this particular law to any business that isn't owned by Murdoch and makes any ad revenue from news content?
      • shakna 6y ago
        The law is written such that the companies it applies to are those the Minister deems that it should. The Minister is also allowed to change the definition required for a company to fit eligibility without altering the law. So, yes, if the Minister suddenly decides to add others to the list, that is exactly what will happen. But there's no need to pass it by Parliament first. And that is as bad as you think it is.
• georgebarnett 6y ago
  Everybody appears to be holding a foot gun here. I’m very much looking forward to seeing which one goes off first. The outcome is uncertain, but it should be fascinating to watch.
  • PixyMisa 6y ago
    That's basically it. This is terrible legislation, Google is a terrible company, and both sides are acting like idiots.
  • keithb- 6y ago
    I'm old and changes in technology have baffled me for years. So here's a hypothetical: if RSS was still popular, would we be having this conversation? I assume that the next phase in this saga will be a plethora of products suddenly pop into the app store that have some childish implementation of a recommendation algorithm built into what is effectively an RSS reader: add news sites, "like" a link once in a while, and Boom! the recommendation algorithm will filter your subscriptions for "related" articles. Every few months or so, you'll have to dump the algorithm data and "reset" because the implementation is too clunky and ends up building odd combinations. "Why am I seeing only links about Arianna Grande now? Why am I not seeing 'new artist' articles?" And then people will start to bitch about XML and then the whole system will halt and catch fire (again).
    • SecurityLagoon 6y ago
      RSS is still cool... Right??? Seriously though RSS has never died and tonnes of us still use it despite the efforts of close-walled companies like Facebook and Twitter disabling it on their services. It is the only way I like to consume my news, particularly tech news, as there are just too many sources to do it any other way. There are some services/clients that try to do what you describe and filter your feeds to emphasise keywords, authors etc.. that you are interested in. They are generally pretty immature though and I would welcome some better systems for this, as long as it is transparent what they are including and excluding.
      • 6y ago
• yeahnah22 6y ago
  I’ll have sympathy for them when they start paying victims of crime for the ads they sell right next to the articles detailing their pain. Drumming up changes in Prime Ministers just to increase their ratings. These companies are NOT champions of the people. They’re just as greedy as Google and far less ethical.
• nbar 6y ago
  Australia has the same the population as metro Manila. It's simply not a big deal for Google other than the precedent set for other markets.
  • hh3k0 6y ago
    Yet Australia's GDP is like what? 4 times the the GDP of the Philippines? Population size alone is a meaningless metric.
  • aneemzic 6y ago
    The average salary in Australia is $55k, the average in the Philippines is $3.9k. Not taking in to account disposable income that's about a factor of 15. The entire philippines only has 4 times the population of Australia. The 2 markets aren't even comparable. User value to companies that serve advertising is based on what companies are willing to pay to serve ads to them. Which is directly tied to the monetary value of that users business to the company buying the advertisement.
    • sand_castles 6y ago
      Australia also has much higher unemployment rate than Ph. Last time I checked, Australia was having "deflation" issues, which means that 55k has been too high.
  • fakedang 6y ago
    Australian advertising spend on Google and FB is also way way more than Metro Manila.
  • kbcool 6y ago
    LOL. Australia is the richest nation (that isn't just a tax dodge) on earth. Sure because the metric used is USD it varies. I'm going to give you a great grounding example. A typical gardener in this country can take home $80k USD a year. That has to be 4 times or more someone in the USA. I'm not talking a garden contractor in Bellair I'm talking an average Joe. Google are great at hiding their revenue but I guarantee you that Australia represented a good 20% of the US based revenue. Despite having a population that's only 10% or so. They would absolutely have their bottom line impacted by withdrawing but they aren't going to. Because of the former sentence.
• throwaway3699 6y ago
  I'm quite sad how many people are in favour of this legislation just because Google is the target. The freedoms and principles of the old internet are being crushed from all sides inwards now. :(
  • rayiner 6y ago
    Google and Facebook are a lot different than Old Internet companies. I don’t recall AltaVista going out of its way to influence politics.
    • throwaway3699 6y ago
      Well, it seems if they don't influence politics that legislation like this happens.
  • b3kart 6y ago
    > The freedoms and principles of the old internet are being crushed from all sides inwards now. Indeed. And we shouldn’t let Google get away with it. :-) (Although this particular legislation doesn’t seem like a very good way to achieve this.)
    • K0nserv 6y ago
      With what? Linking to companies that have explicitly opted in to being linked to? robots.txt exists, Google respects it
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • KiwiJohnno 6y ago
        Thank you for succinctly putting forward the argument I've been trying to make against this legislation. I'm not saying google is a saint, or even evil but this legislation is just plain wrong. Google have provided an optional free service to the media, and its now pretty much an essential service to them. Another poster said they get 70% of their traffic redirected from google. The Australian government is playing clear favorites here. They are penalizing a successful company, and rewarding a bunch of other companies that are struggling - Even though their problems are not related to google's success. And its even more blatant what the game is when you see that the legislation specifically prevents google from paying SBS or ABC - The two highly respected and popular government-funded media networks. The current conservatives government has been cutting their funding and generally trying to kill them for many years.
• cryptica 6y ago
  It makes a lot of sense. The anti-competitive dynamics of these big tech companies is obvious to everyone now. It's time to reconsider how these big tech companies relate to capitalism so that the rest of us can shift our focus back to value creation instead of rent-seeking. If you allow these big tech companies to leverage their attention oligopoly to profit from rent-seeking, they're going to become hotspots of economic parasitism and this will subvert all the incentives which capitalism relies on to function properly.
• interactivecode 6y ago
  Does anyone have a link to either the actual legislation or a simplified version of it? This article doesn't actually tell us what the legislation will be, just that google and facebook are scared..
• AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  Removing search would be a blow. Especially so, if that included YouTube (which MS can't easily replace). That said, it would be much, much worse, if they withdrew Gmail.
  • Aerroon 6y ago
    If Google withdraws their Search from Australia, I wonder what's going to happen to all of their other free services. Something like Gmail would be a problem What about Google Maps though? Or Docs? Authenticator? Fonts?
  • jeltz 6y ago
    Yes, it would be really bad for Google if they withdrew Gmail. They would show that you cannot rely on Google Suite so companies all over the world would need to reconsidrt their choice of platform.
    • username90 6y ago
      It would be up to the Australian government. If they want to prevent Google from doing all business and not just search then that is completely on them. I trust my government that they wouldn't make such a shitty law so I don't worry about one aspect of the business ruining the other.
    • izacus 6y ago
      What if Google also stopped routing emails to Australia? All ads advertising Australian products around the world? I wonder how hard they're willing to play here.
  • mkj 6y ago
    Losing maps would be worse than search. Seems very unlikely they'd follow through with their threats, not like ASD are hacking them.
• bsenftner 6y ago
  To what degree is this situation caused by Google and Facebook neglecting to shower the Australian parliamentary lobbies with financial support? You know, the legal bribery that is everywhere in democratic capitalism? This looks to me like Australian politicians have their hands out...
  • Aerroon 6y ago
    It does seem like every large company basically has to engage in politics in this way. Otherwise they just get steamrolled by unreasonable government policy. And somehow lots of people applaud when this happens.
• wombatmobile 6y ago
  > Google last week launched a platform in Australia offering news it has paid for, striking its own content deals with publishers in a drive to show the proposed legislation is unnecessary. Strategically, Google has played the wrong card. It has a better card up its sleeve called GNI [0], which might ultimately be how this standoff gets resolved. The conservative Australian government, which is in Murdoch's pocket, used audacious logic to justify the extortion play, claiming Google's near monopoly has strangled journalism and so New Limited deserves to be compensated. However, Google doesn't steal News Limited content - it just links to their stories, thereby sending News Limited 70% of its web traffic in Australia. Moreover, the output from Murdoch's empire isn't even predominantly news anymore - it is entertainment and ideology. A better strategy for Google would be to take the high road and offer to support real journalism. It already has a program for that in America called Google News Initiative (GNI) [1] which has contributed to local news organs such as Berkeleyside [2] and Oaklandside [3]. If Google has to reach into its pocket and pay millions to keep doing business in Australia, where it earns billions, the best beneficiary would be local news content producers with whom it could forge symbiotic partnerships. That would be good for journalism, good for Google, and an ironic twist of fate for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. [0] https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com [1] https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/12/10/1958539/0/en/With-3-1-Million-in-Initial-Funding-from-Google-News-Initiative-and-the-American-Journalism-Project-Berkeleyside-Launches-New-Journalism-Platform-in-Oakland-Creates-Nonprofit-to-De.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/12/10/195853... [2] https://www.berkeleyside.com https://www.berkeleyside.com [3] https://oaklandside.org https://oaklandside.org
  • hypertele-Xii 6y ago
    > Google last week launched a platform in Australia offering news it has paid for, striking its own content deals with publishers in a drive to show the proposed legislation is unnecessary. Doesn't that exactly demonstrate that the legistlation is necessary? Would Google had struck such deals without the threat of the legistlation?
    • josephg 6y ago
• fen4o 6y ago
  What's stopping Google from pulling an uno and requiring news organizations to pay Google to have their content searchable?
  • Vespasian 6y ago
    Searchable...probably a provision in this law or fear of further antitrust action. Featured on Android, Google Assistent or in the news tab on the other hand...That might become quite pricey for publishers.
• anotherevan 6y ago
  Here's the full bill if you want to wade into it (PDF): [1] This [2] may provide some helpful commentary. From Google/Facebook's viewpoint, one of the more distasteful aspects which is rarely mentioned in most coverage is that they must give two weeks notice of algorithm changes to registered news businesses. There's a perception in some circles that this is a fairly unnuanced money grab by the government on behalf of Murdoch media[3]. A perception that was not helped by earlier drafts excluding the public Australian Broadcasting Corporation and SBS from the trough. Two organisations the current federal government is seen as being hostile towards. As I understand it: - The bill would not allow Google to simply drop Australian news sites from search results (hello Spain News!), hence really only leaving the option to block Oz altogether. - There is no acknowledgement at all of the value search engines provide to media organisations by the links provided. - The forced arbitration conditions are quite... forceful. (I'm not really across this aspect.) A common nickname for our our Prime Minister among his detractors is "Scotty from Marketing" [4] [1] https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r6652_first-reps/toc_pdf/20177b01.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22legislation/bills/r6652_first-reps/0000%22 https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi... [2] https://www.gtlaw.com.au/insights/its-here-news-media-digital-platforms-mandatory-bargaining-code https://www.gtlaw.com.au/insights/its-here-news-media-digita... [3] https://youtu.be/2BPLBIgKjN8 https://youtu.be/2BPLBIgKjN8 [4] https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/01/where-the-legend-of-scotty-from-marketing-began/ https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/01/where-the-legend-of-sc...
  • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
    I'm a little bit surprised that it's possible to legislate that Google can't just drop Australian news sites. It's such a specific detail into a private company's operational decisions. It appears as a highly personal, directed attack. What are the limits of control that the Australian Government has over the operations of private companies? It also seems to be an illogical request: You must include Australian News sites in search, and you must pay for the privilege to do so. And Australian technologists and entrepreneurs are leaving the country in droves due to lack of opportunity you say? (pre COVID of course)
    • 6y ago
• patchtopic 6y ago
  The current Australian govt ruling party are a bunch of scumbags. Google is not much better.
• MarkMc 6y ago
  Interestingly, Google and Facebook seem to disagree on whether an algorithm can determine what content is 'news': Google says: "There seems to be no clear or obvious distinction between news and non-news content, and the way that Google works, there is no algorithm that could navigate such a vague and broad definition." [0] But Facebook says: "Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news" [1] So who is right? [0] https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/ https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/ [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/changes-to-facebooks-services-in-australia/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/changes-to-facebooks-servi...
  • username90 6y ago
    Facebook might just put it in their EULA since Facebook is user generated content. An automated filter isn't needed to forbid something from being posted on your site. Google however is not user generated pages, so they need an automated filter.
    • MarkMc 6y ago
      OK but won't Facebook need an algorithm to determine which posts do not comply with their EULA?
      • username90 6y ago
        Why would they need that? As soon as someone notifies Facebook that illegal content has been posted on their site they will remove it, just like how it works with other illegal content like copyrighted books etc.
• Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  Aka the "Please don't hurt me Mr Murdoch" Law
• ColinHayhurst 6y ago
  Spain has been mentioned several times here and it's helpful to read the details from 2015, of what happened there. Belgium and Germany too. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study-spains-google-tax-news-shows-how-much-damage-it-has-done.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study... A quick reading of the Bill indicates this will apply to snippets; and even a hyperlink without snippet. Who is that good for? That ended up damaging publishers in Spain. Who else can imagine Google bargaining with the publishers for reduced paid renumeration by offsetting "value" from organic referrals?
• graeme 6y ago
  The way some people are angry at google here reminds of of Brexit. People are saying “google is out of line threatening to leave. They wouldn’t possibly withdraw over paying for news” That’s not why. They’re threatening to withdraw because the law requires two week advance notice of algo changes. If you have any idea how google works you know this is impossible. Brexiteers scorned critics and are now learning that indeed some things are impossible, such as control over borders and regulations and unfettered free trade with the eu. People seem to have such distaste for google that they’re not wrestling with how impossible Australia’s demands really are. Google has faced similar news demands in europe before and didn’t threaten to leave. But those demands didn’t come with impossible to comply with algorithm requests.
  • snickms 6y ago
    > The way some people are angry at google here reminds of of Brexit. Indeed. Both are the result of flooding the media with specious arguments designed to make people fight over irrelevant details. 'Google is a grifter' 'The EU are robbing us of our NHS' Google is not rich because of news articles. The NHS was not underfunded due to the EU.
  • snarf21 6y ago
    Google has all the cards here. Just threaten to turn off Google and all services for the whole country if this garbage is voted on. I think there would be a huge backlash among the public.
    • janeroe 6y ago
      No, they don't. They are too invested. There is a dev campus there with tons of people working.
  • janeroe 6y ago
    > If you have any idea how google works you know this (two week advance notice of algo changes) is impossible. You do have some idea, don't you? Enlighten us how it works and why algo change notices are impossible. > some things are impossible, such as control over borders Right, no country outside of EU has control over their borders.
• karmasimida 6y ago
  How important is Australia to Google? If it is not profitable, they surely can exit this market. And Australia would get some replacement for search engine/new sources. So nothing really changes, the sky is not falling.
• throwaways885 6y ago
  This law is disgusting. It won't just hit Google and Facebook, but anybody who runs a social platform. Reddit, Hacker News, Twitter even Mastodon are all in the firing line. The Australian government has unilateral control over which sites are required to funnel money Murdoch trash instead of real (maybe even independent) journalism. My prediction is people will move to social platforms that do let you share these links, and one by one they'll find themselves regulated out of existence when they get large enough to catch the attention of the government. Even worse - think about the ways this could be abused e.g. to shut down small outlets who committed the crime of linking to mainstream sources. I believe this is far more despicable than anything Big Tech is doing, and global adoption would be the end of a free and open web. You thought software patents constricted the flow of information? This is 10x worse. Edit: Please, Aussies, call your MP and tell them your thoughts. Put aside any negative feelings about Big Tech for now, and think about the future of the web. This will eventually affect all of us who operate comment sections, blogs, forums and Mastodon instances.
  • username90 6y ago
    This law only applies to whoever the Australian government thinks it should apply to, that is the wording there are no explicit rules. Currently that is only Facebook and Google.
    • throwaways885 6y ago
      Yup - this is the crux of my point. It's hitting the big guys today and could easily hit anyone tomorrow.
    • bouncycastle 6y ago
      Currently. However, after such laws are passed, you have to ask, who's next?
    • hpoe 6y ago
      Wow so it's okay to go after people that are politically unpopular right now. And when they decide people with certain ideas are dangerous or people of a certain ethnicity are dangerous?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• AlexCoventry 6y ago
  Anyone got a link to the proposed legislation?
  • shakna 6y ago
    Here [0]. [0] 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....
• ollo 6y ago
  I am not familiar with the proposed law, is this basically the same as the EU link tax? If so, it is terrible.
  • shakna 6y ago
    The same idea, but somehow even worse. As well as the companies the law applies to having to pay people who have asked them to index and promote their websites... a) The Minister will name a series of companies they deem the law will apply to, and it applies only to them. (Currently only Google & Facebook. The Minister recently spoke with Microsoft and decided not to add Bing to their hitlist.) The Minister can change this at any time, without Parliamentary oversight. b) The companies it applies to have to both reveal the inner workings of their algorithms to selected news companies, and give 14 days notice of any changes that will happen. c) The companies it applies to are not allowed to stop indexing or showing news content. They can't decide not to do business unless they stop being a business altogether. d) The companies that will be paid under this scheme are selected by the Minister, and can change at any time without Parliamentary oversight. So it will have a net zero effect on independent journalism.
    • ollo 6y ago
      Yes, this sounds even worse. Letting the government decide which company has to pay is definitely not fair. The government could target some companies it does not like and let other pro-government companies out of this law. Honestly it looks as if this law was written directly by mass media lobbyists. It is unfortunate that this kind of anti-democratic regulation is being passed all over the world nowadays, it is as if corporate lobbying is stronger than the common interest.
• thethought 6y ago
  Didn’t read article. Comments remind me of the cause and penalty of Opium War - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
• dhx 6y ago
  If I search for "Victorians Expecting The Very Worst After Dan Andrews Spotted Making A North Face Run" using google.com.au[1], the first result is for an article of The Betoota Advocate[2], which is indeed what I had searched for. Unfortunately this esteemed news organisation is highly unlikely to meet a long list of criteria for a registered news business corporation or news business or whatever and therefore wouldn't qualify to be paid anything under this proposed legislation. Instead of remunerating the obvious party, will Google instead be paying the registered news business corporations corresponding to the 5 news articles that show up in the top 10 search results for this query? The other 4 search results would miss out on being paid as they consist of 2 social media discussions of the first result, an international news organisation and an international news aggregation website. What if instead I search for "Ancient Egyptians collected wild ibis birds for sacrifice, says study"[3] which brings up the original press release from an Australian University[4] as the third result. All other results returned are for the most part a copy and paste of the original press release and include a WikiNews article, two Australian media organisations ([6] copied from [5] copied from the original [4]) and a number of international science news websites and international media organisations. Who is Google paying in this scenario and why should anyone be paid anything for copying and pasting a press release that is returned by a Google search result? It looks like this question is unanswered according to section 52X which states it's up to companies like Google to figure it out after this legislation comes into effect: > The responsible digital platform corporation for the designated digital platform service must ensure that: (a) a proposal is developed for the designated digital platform service to recognise original covered news content when it makes available and distributes that content [1] https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Victorians%20Expecting%20The%20Very%20Worst%20After%20Dan%20Andrews%20Spotted%20Making%20A%20North%20Face%20Run https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Victorians%20Expecting... [2] https://www.betootaadvocate.com/headlines/victorians-expecting-the-very-worst-after-dan-andrews-spotted-making-a-north-face-run/ https://www.betootaadvocate.com/headlines/victorians-expecti... [3] https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Ancient%20Egyptians%20collected%20wild%20ibis%20birds%20for%20sacrifice,%20says%20study https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Ancient%20Egyptians%20... [4] https://news.griffith.edu.au/2019/11/14/genetic-analysis-suggests-wise-bin-chickens-tamed-and-sacrificed-to-egyptian-god/ https://news.griffith.edu.au/2019/11/14/genetic-analysis-sug... [5] https://theconversation.com/holy-bin-chickens-ancient-egyptians-tamed-wild-ibis-for-sacrifice-126186 https://theconversation.com/holy-bin-chickens-ancient-egypti... [6] https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6494482/how-egyptians-tamed-the-bin-chicken/ https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6494482/how-egyptians...
• mikkoj 6y ago
  The particulars of the legislation are crap, but legislation like this should've been put in place around 2005. Commercial tech moves faster than legislation, so this wasn't even on the political radar screens back then. Google and Facebook are algorithmic media companies and should be treated as such (like traditional, editorial media companies), instead of giving them completely free hands to frame the debate around how they are "platforms," some new entity that they themselves define, as if they were above society. This situation is hard to walk back, but I applaud the AUS gov for trying. Yes, this would (could/should?) also apply to smaller sites that make money by aggregating traffic based on the original work of others and monetizing the attention. We can start imagining what that could look like and how to implement it. Instead of "GUVERMENT IS BAD" knee-jerk reactions, this should be exciting: what would an internet look like that would have compensation of content creators among the first principles?
• suddenexample 6y ago
  Everyone's hate boner for Google is making them blind to how bad of a law this is. This doesn't benefit Australian news - it benefits Murdoch's news. Yes Google has a ton of power and it's crazy that it got this way. But this legislation, where the government picks specific companies to target and specific companies to benefit, is not the answer.
• yvan-eht-nioj 6y ago
  The bill has bipartisan support with the stated goal of improving the quality of journalism, which is a cornerstone of functional democracy. Public trust in the media is paramount, which is undermined when media organisations can only compete by tailoring their articles to fit into an explicitly commercialised search system. Google is great for selling products. They’ve built their entire business around selling products. But is news a product, or a service?