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> Australian government forces Google to soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content There, I fixed it. I'm getting tired of every headline tryin

> Australian government forces Google to soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content There, I fixed it. I'm getting tired of every headline trying to bash on Google/Facebook/etc. for clicks.

Ansil849 5y ago
Do you also have this same opinion on Google's Project Dragonfly (Google's censored Chinese search engine)? That is, that people shouldn't have "bashed" Google, since it was the Chinese government "forcing" them?
DaltonCoffee 5y ago
Needing gov't ID to follow search links is dystopian, and antithetical to the original spirit of the Internet. Google should flat out refuse when governments make these requests.
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  Agreed, and not sure why the early downvote wave you experienced there. I am surprised to see this sort of sentiment downvoted on HN.
  - oblak 5y ago
    I've done my part to correct this injustice. I am curious what kind of person downvotes such opinions edit: point taken. I had read the "google should flat out refuse to follow the law" bit. oops
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    I'll explain why I downvoted - because I get a little bit sick of these slippery slope arguments that every time Google has to follow a law that, while controversial, is not exactly the last breath of a despotic régime, that people love to decry Google as "being evil". The fact is, there are gray areas. When it comes to government regulations, tech companies essentially have 2 options: comply or leave the country in question (note Google has already tried to lobby against the law in question). While "leave" sometimes is the only moral option, I totally disagree that this law warrants Google leaving Australia.
    - DaltonCoffee 5y ago
      Then we agree, at least in principle. I don't know the details of this legislation but I have viewed Australia as a beta test for new tech legislation and worry this sort of authorization barrier could become more common place in Western countries.
    - giveupitscrazy 5y ago
      Consider then if Google had decided to leave it would have had a huge negative backlash on the law, given the usefulness of Google. Instead Australia can now get what it wants and the backlash is minimal at best. Meanwhile they can go on to celebrate their dystopian law as working because of the endorsement Google gave them by capitulating. Short term yeah it'd suck for Australia to lose Google but then the law gets changed back, Google comes back, and everyone wins. Well except for the Australian government.
      - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
        I find this reaction, well, odd. It is basically arguing that we want giant multinational corporations to have more power than democratically elected governments. I see diatribes all the time on HN bashing companies like AirBnB and Uber for "blatantly ignoring the law" to get what they want, and here are a bunch of people wishing for Google to blatantly ignore the law to get what they want.
        oonerspism 5y ago
        You have a point. However I don't believe anyone here's advocating that Google ignore or break laws. But rather, to (as done with China) voluntarily withdraw certain services in response to arguably-unacceptable duress. [note: that is not my position here - I'm merely clarifying part of the discussion] I must add, being relatively familiar with Australia's tech sector and it's people, that there is not a great deal of respect in the sector for the tech choices made by Australia's incumbent government of recent years. Whether or not that sentiment is ethically trumped by the fact of that government's democratic election by the general populace, is up to the reader...
- tzs 5y ago
  It looks like it is for YouTube and Play content, not search links. If so, I don't see how it is any more dystopian than the ID requirements that have long been in place for non-internet media. I don't recall anyone calling it dystopian back in the '70s for instance when we had to show ID to rent movies from the "adult" room at the local video rental store.
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    When you shown ID to the local video store, no record is made. And the video stores usually were not connected to a global interconnected graph of customers data. Worst case scenario, you had a paper card somewhere in a drawer with your name on it.
  - car_analogy 5y ago
    After showing ID, did the rental place record it, the video you rented, when you rented it and for how long, then store that information in a database shared with other outlets of the giant multinational conglomerate which it belongs to, sell it to advertisers and corporate security, and make it available on request to governments of the world? And was this process duplicated for every other piece of media you consumed, to create a full profile of your interests? A large change in quantity changes quality as well.
    - socksset 5y ago
      This is a mistake we make over and over and over. It practically seems like a type of cognitive bias based around technology. We use some similar technology from the past to model the implications of the new technology and then willfully ignore the fundamental change brought about by digitization and network connectivity. The strangest thing is everyone understands how powerful network connectivity and digitization are in the abstract but when it comes to the concrete we brush it off like it is not. This is just like renting The Terminator from the video store in 1989. What could possibly go wrong?
coolso 5y ago
Kind of a bad look for Google when its workers refuse to work on projects for the US Military, and then when Trump wins they hold a meeting where top level execs are tearing up and emotional while unpacking the situation… but when things like this happen, seemingly, nothing but crickets from those brave workers. Tired of people defending Google at every turn despite them not deserving the benefit of the doubt for many years now.
OrlandoHakim 5y ago
Google has a choice here. Just as they chose to not to do business in China. I find it disingenuous to claim that one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world has no agency in this situation. Remember how hard Google fought the Australian laws about search engines paying news organizations. Not to say the Australian government is guilt-free here. There are no good guys here.
tehwebguy 5y ago
Nobody misunderstood headline this as it was written
dessant 5y ago
Age verification is already mandated in the EU, and when you provide your credit card details to Google's age verification system for YouTube, they create a payments profile for you without consent. The Google account is set up for purchasing services across all Google properties, without needing to provide further payment details. Google is exploiting the requirement for age verification to set up Google accounts for future purchases. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30699957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30699957
- jmole 5y ago
  Or, they’re using the only consumer-focused credit card verification system they have (google pay), and “prevent users from using their credit cards” was never on the roadmap…
  - MereInterest 5y ago
    Suppose I asked you if I could borrow your car to get groceries. A week later, I take your car again and go for a road trip. You would be justified in being mad at me, because (1) the consent didn't cover the use and (2) the initial consent was for a limited time. Google has an obligation to verify age. Google also has an obligation to limit tracking of personal information to usages that have been consented to. Neither of these obligations negate the other, and if Google never put it onto their feature roadmap, that just means that Google has been negligent in fulfilling their obligations.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  Isn't that a pretty straightforward violation of the GDPR? Consent to track somebody's personal information requires the data subject to be informed as to the use of the information, and personal information may not be used outside of the usages that were consented to.
  - srcreigh 5y ago
    The consent Google requests could be very broad. I wonder does GDPR specify different categories of consent which must be specifically and separately requested?

Ansil849 5y ago

Do you also have this same opinion on Google's Project Dragonfly (Google's censored Chinese search engine)? That is, that people shouldn't have "bashed" Google, since it was the Chinese government "forcing" them?

DaltonCoffee 5y ago

Needing gov't ID to follow search links is dystopian, and antithetical to the original spirit of the Internet. Google should flat out refuse when governments make these requests.

mechanical_bear 5y ago
Agreed, and not sure why the early downvote wave you experienced there. I am surprised to see this sort of sentiment downvoted on HN.
- oblak 5y ago
  I've done my part to correct this injustice. I am curious what kind of person downvotes such opinions edit: point taken. I had read the "google should flat out refuse to follow the law" bit. oops
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  I'll explain why I downvoted - because I get a little bit sick of these slippery slope arguments that every time Google has to follow a law that, while controversial, is not exactly the last breath of a despotic régime, that people love to decry Google as "being evil". The fact is, there are gray areas. When it comes to government regulations, tech companies essentially have 2 options: comply or leave the country in question (note Google has already tried to lobby against the law in question). While "leave" sometimes is the only moral option, I totally disagree that this law warrants Google leaving Australia.
  - DaltonCoffee 5y ago
    Then we agree, at least in principle. I don't know the details of this legislation but I have viewed Australia as a beta test for new tech legislation and worry this sort of authorization barrier could become more common place in Western countries.
  - giveupitscrazy 5y ago
    Consider then if Google had decided to leave it would have had a huge negative backlash on the law, given the usefulness of Google. Instead Australia can now get what it wants and the backlash is minimal at best. Meanwhile they can go on to celebrate their dystopian law as working because of the endorsement Google gave them by capitulating. Short term yeah it'd suck for Australia to lose Google but then the law gets changed back, Google comes back, and everyone wins. Well except for the Australian government.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      I find this reaction, well, odd. It is basically arguing that we want giant multinational corporations to have more power than democratically elected governments. I see diatribes all the time on HN bashing companies like AirBnB and Uber for "blatantly ignoring the law" to get what they want, and here are a bunch of people wishing for Google to blatantly ignore the law to get what they want.
      - oonerspism 5y ago
        You have a point. However I don't believe anyone here's advocating that Google ignore or break laws. But rather, to (as done with China) voluntarily withdraw certain services in response to arguably-unacceptable duress. [note: that is not my position here - I'm merely clarifying part of the discussion] I must add, being relatively familiar with Australia's tech sector and it's people, that there is not a great deal of respect in the sector for the tech choices made by Australia's incumbent government of recent years. Whether or not that sentiment is ethically trumped by the fact of that government's democratic election by the general populace, is up to the reader...
tzs 5y ago
It looks like it is for YouTube and Play content, not search links. If so, I don't see how it is any more dystopian than the ID requirements that have long been in place for non-internet media. I don't recall anyone calling it dystopian back in the '70s for instance when we had to show ID to rent movies from the "adult" room at the local video rental store.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  When you shown ID to the local video store, no record is made. And the video stores usually were not connected to a global interconnected graph of customers data. Worst case scenario, you had a paper card somewhere in a drawer with your name on it.
- car_analogy 5y ago
  After showing ID, did the rental place record it, the video you rented, when you rented it and for how long, then store that information in a database shared with other outlets of the giant multinational conglomerate which it belongs to, sell it to advertisers and corporate security, and make it available on request to governments of the world? And was this process duplicated for every other piece of media you consumed, to create a full profile of your interests? A large change in quantity changes quality as well.
  - socksset 5y ago
    This is a mistake we make over and over and over. It practically seems like a type of cognitive bias based around technology. We use some similar technology from the past to model the implications of the new technology and then willfully ignore the fundamental change brought about by digitization and network connectivity. The strangest thing is everyone understands how powerful network connectivity and digitization are in the abstract but when it comes to the concrete we brush it off like it is not. This is just like renting The Terminator from the video store in 1989. What could possibly go wrong?

coolso 5y ago

Kind of a bad look for Google when its workers refuse to work on projects for the US Military, and then when Trump wins they hold a meeting where top level execs are tearing up and emotional while unpacking the situation… but when things like this happen, seemingly, nothing but crickets from those brave workers. Tired of people defending Google at every turn despite them not deserving the benefit of the doubt for many years now.

OrlandoHakim 5y ago

Google has a choice here. Just as they chose to not to do business in China. I find it disingenuous to claim that one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world has no agency in this situation. Remember how hard Google fought the Australian laws about search engines paying news organizations. Not to say the Australian government is guilt-free here. There are no good guys here.

tehwebguy 5y ago

Nobody misunderstood headline this as it was written

dessant 5y ago

Age verification is already mandated in the EU, and when you provide your credit card details to Google's age verification system for YouTube, they create a payments profile for you without consent. The Google account is set up for purchasing services across all Google properties, without needing to provide further payment details. Google is exploiting the requirement for age verification to set up Google accounts for future purchases. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30699957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30699957

jmole 5y ago
Or, they’re using the only consumer-focused credit card verification system they have (google pay), and “prevent users from using their credit cards” was never on the roadmap…
- MereInterest 5y ago
  Suppose I asked you if I could borrow your car to get groceries. A week later, I take your car again and go for a road trip. You would be justified in being mad at me, because (1) the consent didn't cover the use and (2) the initial consent was for a limited time. Google has an obligation to verify age. Google also has an obligation to limit tracking of personal information to usages that have been consented to. Neither of these obligations negate the other, and if Google never put it onto their feature roadmap, that just means that Google has been negligent in fulfilling their obligations.
MereInterest 5y ago
Isn't that a pretty straightforward violation of the GDPR? Consent to track somebody's personal information requires the data subject to be informed as to the use of the information, and personal information may not be used outside of the usages that were consented to.
- srcreigh 5y ago
  The consent Google requests could be very broad. I wonder does GDPR specify different categories of consent which must be specifically and separately requested?