5 ms·

Why did Google blink when FB didn't then?

franklampard 6y ago
Google actively indexes the news sites and offer present them in its search results. But on Facebook the news publishers voluntarily share their stories. That’s the biggest difference in my opinion.
- sjwright 6y ago
  I don't agree. Explicitly permitting Googlebot to continually scour your site for decades—including letting it through the paywalls—also constitutes voluntary sharing of stories. The distinction is really just a technicality of whether the ongoing relationship is push or pull.
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago
  A simple robots.txt is all that was needed. But that wasn’t used by News Corp, so that suggests to me that they were just trying to ride on Google’s coat tails
nickpp 6y ago
Cowardness.
Aunche 6y ago
Google has much more to lose. It's pretty common to use search engines to look up current events. There are plenty of competitors hungry for market share. Meanwhile, the only people who would care if FB blocked news articles would be people who share them, which is a tiny fraction of users. It's not like you're getting the news for TikTok or Instagram either.
MertsA 6y ago
Google came to the conclusion that they couldn't legally extricate themselves without pulling out of Australia entirely. Since the bill forced companies to treat the news content in question the same it's all or nothing for removal. Facebook faced losing all news content in Australia, Google faced losing the golden goose in Australia. They had more incentive to come to an agreement.
plugger 6y ago
Google already had a plan for this back in October 2020 (in terms of paying a premium for news). https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/google-news-showcase/ https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiat...
rstuart4133 6y ago
Google didn't blink. When the government said search was included Google threatened to withdraw search. Search is now excluded [0], and the threat is withdrawn. Since Google stated it was prepared to share revenue from news.google back in June and now that is all that is happening, I'd say someone else blinked. [0] https://theconversation.com/this-weeks-changes-are-a-win-for-facebook-google-and-the-government-but-what-was-lost-along-the-way-155865#comment_2458767 https://theconversation.com/this-weeks-changes-are-a-win-for...

Google actively indexes the news sites and offer present them in its search results. But on Facebook the news publishers voluntarily share their stories. That’s the biggest difference in my opinion.

sjwright 6y ago
I don't agree. Explicitly permitting Googlebot to continually scour your site for decades—including letting it through the paywalls—also constitutes voluntary sharing of stories. The distinction is really just a technicality of whether the ongoing relationship is push or pull.
alfiedotwtf 6y ago
A simple robots.txt is all that was needed. But that wasn’t used by News Corp, so that suggests to me that they were just trying to ride on Google’s coat tails

nickpp 6y ago

Cowardness.

Aunche 6y ago

Google has much more to lose. It's pretty common to use search engines to look up current events. There are plenty of competitors hungry for market share. Meanwhile, the only people who would care if FB blocked news articles would be people who share them, which is a tiny fraction of users. It's not like you're getting the news for TikTok or Instagram either.

MertsA 6y ago

Google came to the conclusion that they couldn't legally extricate themselves without pulling out of Australia entirely. Since the bill forced companies to treat the news content in question the same it's all or nothing for removal. Facebook faced losing all news content in Australia, Google faced losing the golden goose in Australia. They had more incentive to come to an agreement.

plugger 6y ago

Google already had a plan for this back in October 2020 (in terms of paying a premium for news). https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/google-news-showcase/ https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiat...

rstuart4133 6y ago

Google didn't blink. When the government said search was included Google threatened to withdraw search. Search is now excluded [0], and the threat is withdrawn. Since Google stated it was prepared to share revenue from news.google back in June and now that is all that is happening, I'd say someone else blinked. [0] https://theconversation.com/this-weeks-changes-are-a-win-for-facebook-google-and-the-government-but-what-was-lost-along-the-way-155865#comment_2458767 https://theconversation.com/this-weeks-changes-are-a-win-for...