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Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to wh

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd love some context for this.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
Just Canadian politicians being Canadian politicians...that's really all the context you need.
musha68k 3y ago
Look at the constant internet censorship pressures in the UK. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree unfortunately.
glonq 3y ago
> Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? To paraphrase a great Canadian -- Yes they probably do. And don't call me Shirley.
duringmath 3y ago
Liberal politicians will pass any law seen as harmful to US tech companies consequences be damned. It's like California but on a national level, still not quite as insane thankfully.
- jug6ernaut 3y ago
  Which state are these big US tech companies based in again? I may have missed it.
  - pyrale 3y ago
    They wanted to move to Texas, but unfortunately Texas hates electricity.
  - ecshafer 3y ago
    Delaware?
- jabits 3y ago
  California gave birth to these companies, and has been, and remains one of our nations’s primary economic engines, despite the shenanigans of a few attention-seeking public figures…
  - duringmath 3y ago
    I agree
reaperducer 3y ago
Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist on a staff of other professionals with families to feed - and then move on. Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone clicking through to the web site, Google is getting the value from the headline, and contributing nothing to the web site in return. It's like saying that when Google steals content from web sites and presents it as an answer card in search results that the web site somehow gets something out of it. That's completely false. The only one getting anything out of it is Google.
- dmayle 3y ago
  This is the most ridiculous take on this that I've ever seen. Next you're going to say that newspaper stands need to pay a charge to the newspaper each time someone walks by their stall (or buys gum, for example). They have seen the headline, and then moved on. Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone buying that newspaper, the newspaper stand has got value from the headline, and contributed nothing to the newspaper publisher in return. The reality is that headlines are advertisements for articles. That's why there are headline writers in the first place. Make a better advertisement, get more sales. In the case of Google, publishing links with headlines means publishing free ads for that website. The website most certainly benefits from that relationship, if they didn't, they would just use robots.txt to block Google indexing their website, which someone has always been free to do. The real problem is that newspapers would just like to take a percentage of Google revenue, because they're a big company.
  - regnard 3y ago
    I agree with this take-- and this is probably why Google and Meta were the only companies included. What about Reddit, Twitter, (and even HN)? The counterpoint here is that this bill is very protectionist in nature and aims to give something to the Canadian news & media industry.
LegitShady 3y ago
On one hand, yes, it drives traffic. On the other hand, no, because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can do that without clicking. But realistically this the current Canadian government trying to shake down google and facebook for money to transfer to the ailing news industry in canada. The merits of the position for a link tax are pretty bad, and don’t really matter to the issue at hand. The government already gives hundreds of millions in grants and tax incentives to make the current journalism landscape in canada possible, without even looking at CBC the national broadcaster. This is just a shake down job. They see google and facebook have a ton of money and the government thought they could threaten them into parting with some of it. The government doesn’t care about the implications of a link tax on the web, or mutually beneficial relationships, or any of that. It’s a shakedown.
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  >> because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can do that without clicking. I agree; I'd argue you don't have much of a valuable service if all users need is a headline. Print media needs to give up the traditional shallow breadth fueled by advertising and go niche, and go deep. Cable TV should learn this lesson as well.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    I think traditional media needs to go deep and needs to go local. If I open up the local paper and see associated press articles that’s not the right content for them. I can see that anywhere, probably before the newspaper is delivered. It needs to be local journalism about things that matter. Actual local issues, hard journalism about local politics and city hall and whatnot. That’s what’s missing from the big sites and when it is there its sort of after the fact. They need to be investigating not just repeating press releases. I don’t know about cable tv - its essentially a syndication not a local thing. I think the internet will kill it off. Now that the lines to the home aren’t a moat around being a cable company every video website is the new cable company. They need to have content you can’t get on the internet and I don’t think that’s going to happen. As old people die who couldn’t adapt to internet tv, so cable will die.
donmcronald 3y ago
Canadian media has always enjoyed some protectionism from the government. It's old, entrenched players wanting, and getting, something for nothing. The people that control our media and telecommunications in Canada could fit in a compact car. This doesn't have anything to do with the average person. It's all business and lobbying.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  > The people that control our media and telecommunications in Canada could fit in a compact car. Spot on. In Canada it's about the handful of the oligarchs who have control over almost everything. It has nothing to do with the average plebs
  - dmix 3y ago
    And now CBC won't be on Google, Twitter (over gov funding label), or Facebook(?) I won't be surprised if we (the taxpayers) end up having to support them even more. Who knows maybe they'll have to pass more tax subsidies for the other major players too.
- raydev 3y ago
  But does anyone actually win from this? Has someone behind C-18 run the numbers and found a way that this would increase revenue for Canadian media companies? I don't see how Meta and Google weren't completely predictable, and I don't see how Canadian media benefits from getting shut out. I am so confused.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    its going to do the exact opposite of what they said its going to do. Google and meta will disable linking to canadian news sites, canadian news sites won't receive the revenue from those visits. Meanwhile american news is still free to share in canada, so linking to american news will be the norm and the act to protect and fund canadian news will create an increase in consumption of US news and will remove money these companies already receive from google traffic. It's so bad its upside down.
barbazoo 3y ago
Then there surely is a source for that somewhere. Otherwise it's just as fair to assume it's not a mutually beneficial relationship.
- joegahona 3y ago
  The source would be the organic-traffic and Facebook analytics for all those news publications. Whatever it is now, won't this take it to 0%? I feel like a similar thing was tried in Europe somewhere a few years ago and then quickly ditched, because all the publications saw their traffic crater. Looks like something similar was enacted in Australia, and Google/Facbook settled: https://www.reuters.com/technology/australia-says-law-making-facebook-google-pay-news-has-worked-2022-12-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/australia-says-law-making... And an update from Google's blog from 4 hours ago: https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiatives/an-update-on-canadas-bill-c-18-and-our-search-and-news-products/ https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiat...
WeylandYutani 3y ago
Dutch newspapers are back to subscriptions. They're doing better than ever. If your product is good people will pay for it. And there will always be a class of people who need journalism. Politicians, government officials, bankers. In hindsight the whole internet bubble looks strange. Nobody cared about monetisation only users!
Alupis 3y ago
> Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Probably depends. In some cases, Google scrapes the interesting bits and people never click through to the host site. In other cases, Google has provided a way for people to circumvent paywalls. Some of this was a strategy by news organizations - but it seems it might not work long term. I, for one, click through to far fewer Wikipedia articles now that Google includes the synopsis embedded in search results...
hotsauceror 3y ago
This same thing happened in Spain, several years ago. The government passed a law charging google for linking to Spanish media sites. Google said "gracias, pero no" and stopped linking to those sites. The publishers immediately got upset about the loss of traffic to their websites. Mike Masnick's schadenfreude alone could have powered a small nation for a week.
- marcod 3y ago
  I forgot all about that. > Last November [2021], Spain overturned the 2014 law and instead signed on to a European Union copyright directive that lets publishers negotiate their agreements directly with platforms. https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/06/after-8-years-google-news-returns-to-spain/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/06/after-8-years-google-news-...
lonk11 3y ago
I recommend this podcast episode on the financial interests involved: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/podcast/episode-172-marc-edge-on-bill-c-18-and-the-postmedia-effect/ https://www.michaelgeist.ca/podcast/episode-172-marc-edge-on...
kevincox 3y ago
> Canadian users will still be able to search for news content from international outlets such as BBC, New York Times and Fox News. This is really the icing on the cake for me. Not only are you losing a lot of search traffic, but now those users are going to be directed to international sources so they won't even be looking for you. What a great way to screw over national media.

JimtheCoder 3y ago

Just Canadian politicians being Canadian politicians...that's really all the context you need.

musha68k 3y ago

Look at the constant internet censorship pressures in the UK. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree unfortunately.

glonq 3y ago

> Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? To paraphrase a great Canadian -- Yes they probably do. And don't call me Shirley.

duringmath 3y ago

Liberal politicians will pass any law seen as harmful to US tech companies consequences be damned. It's like California but on a national level, still not quite as insane thankfully.

jug6ernaut 3y ago
Which state are these big US tech companies based in again? I may have missed it.
- pyrale 3y ago
  They wanted to move to Texas, but unfortunately Texas hates electricity.
- ecshafer 3y ago
  Delaware?
jabits 3y ago
California gave birth to these companies, and has been, and remains one of our nations’s primary economic engines, despite the shenanigans of a few attention-seeking public figures…
- duringmath 3y ago
  I agree

reaperducer 3y ago

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist on a staff of other professionals with families to feed - and then move on. Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone clicking through to the web site, Google is getting the value from the headline, and contributing nothing to the web site in return. It's like saying that when Google steals content from web sites and presents it as an answer card in search results that the web site somehow gets something out of it. That's completely false. The only one getting anything out of it is Google.

dmayle 3y ago
This is the most ridiculous take on this that I've ever seen. Next you're going to say that newspaper stands need to pay a charge to the newspaper each time someone walks by their stall (or buys gum, for example). They have seen the headline, and then moved on. Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone buying that newspaper, the newspaper stand has got value from the headline, and contributed nothing to the newspaper publisher in return. The reality is that headlines are advertisements for articles. That's why there are headline writers in the first place. Make a better advertisement, get more sales. In the case of Google, publishing links with headlines means publishing free ads for that website. The website most certainly benefits from that relationship, if they didn't, they would just use robots.txt to block Google indexing their website, which someone has always been free to do. The real problem is that newspapers would just like to take a percentage of Google revenue, because they're a big company.
- regnard 3y ago
  I agree with this take-- and this is probably why Google and Meta were the only companies included. What about Reddit, Twitter, (and even HN)? The counterpoint here is that this bill is very protectionist in nature and aims to give something to the Canadian news & media industry.

LegitShady 3y ago

On one hand, yes, it drives traffic. On the other hand, no, because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can do that without clicking. But realistically this the current Canadian government trying to shake down google and facebook for money to transfer to the ailing news industry in canada. The merits of the position for a link tax are pretty bad, and don’t really matter to the issue at hand. The government already gives hundreds of millions in grants and tax incentives to make the current journalism landscape in canada possible, without even looking at CBC the national broadcaster. This is just a shake down job. They see google and facebook have a ton of money and the government thought they could threaten them into parting with some of it. The government doesn’t care about the implications of a link tax on the web, or mutually beneficial relationships, or any of that. It’s a shakedown.

skeeter2020 3y ago
>> because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can do that without clicking. I agree; I'd argue you don't have much of a valuable service if all users need is a headline. Print media needs to give up the traditional shallow breadth fueled by advertising and go niche, and go deep. Cable TV should learn this lesson as well.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  I think traditional media needs to go deep and needs to go local. If I open up the local paper and see associated press articles that’s not the right content for them. I can see that anywhere, probably before the newspaper is delivered. It needs to be local journalism about things that matter. Actual local issues, hard journalism about local politics and city hall and whatnot. That’s what’s missing from the big sites and when it is there its sort of after the fact. They need to be investigating not just repeating press releases. I don’t know about cable tv - its essentially a syndication not a local thing. I think the internet will kill it off. Now that the lines to the home aren’t a moat around being a cable company every video website is the new cable company. They need to have content you can’t get on the internet and I don’t think that’s going to happen. As old people die who couldn’t adapt to internet tv, so cable will die.

donmcronald 3y ago

Canadian media has always enjoyed some protectionism from the government. It's old, entrenched players wanting, and getting, something for nothing. The people that control our media and telecommunications in Canada could fit in a compact car. This doesn't have anything to do with the average person. It's all business and lobbying.

gloryjulio 3y ago
> The people that control our media and telecommunications in Canada could fit in a compact car. Spot on. In Canada it's about the handful of the oligarchs who have control over almost everything. It has nothing to do with the average plebs
- dmix 3y ago
  And now CBC won't be on Google, Twitter (over gov funding label), or Facebook(?) I won't be surprised if we (the taxpayers) end up having to support them even more. Who knows maybe they'll have to pass more tax subsidies for the other major players too.
raydev 3y ago
But does anyone actually win from this? Has someone behind C-18 run the numbers and found a way that this would increase revenue for Canadian media companies? I don't see how Meta and Google weren't completely predictable, and I don't see how Canadian media benefits from getting shut out. I am so confused.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  its going to do the exact opposite of what they said its going to do. Google and meta will disable linking to canadian news sites, canadian news sites won't receive the revenue from those visits. Meanwhile american news is still free to share in canada, so linking to american news will be the norm and the act to protect and fund canadian news will create an increase in consumption of US news and will remove money these companies already receive from google traffic. It's so bad its upside down.

barbazoo 3y ago

Then there surely is a source for that somewhere. Otherwise it's just as fair to assume it's not a mutually beneficial relationship.

joegahona 3y ago
The source would be the organic-traffic and Facebook analytics for all those news publications. Whatever it is now, won't this take it to 0%? I feel like a similar thing was tried in Europe somewhere a few years ago and then quickly ditched, because all the publications saw their traffic crater. Looks like something similar was enacted in Australia, and Google/Facbook settled: https://www.reuters.com/technology/australia-says-law-making-facebook-google-pay-news-has-worked-2022-12-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/australia-says-law-making... And an update from Google's blog from 4 hours ago: https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiatives/an-update-on-canadas-bill-c-18-and-our-search-and-news-products/ https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiat...

WeylandYutani 3y ago

Dutch newspapers are back to subscriptions. They're doing better than ever. If your product is good people will pay for it. And there will always be a class of people who need journalism. Politicians, government officials, bankers. In hindsight the whole internet bubble looks strange. Nobody cared about monetisation only users!

Alupis 3y ago

> Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Probably depends. In some cases, Google scrapes the interesting bits and people never click through to the host site. In other cases, Google has provided a way for people to circumvent paywalls. Some of this was a strategy by news organizations - but it seems it might not work long term. I, for one, click through to far fewer Wikipedia articles now that Google includes the synopsis embedded in search results...

hotsauceror 3y ago

This same thing happened in Spain, several years ago. The government passed a law charging google for linking to Spanish media sites. Google said "gracias, pero no" and stopped linking to those sites. The publishers immediately got upset about the loss of traffic to their websites. Mike Masnick's schadenfreude alone could have powered a small nation for a week.

marcod 3y ago
I forgot all about that. > Last November [2021], Spain overturned the 2014 law and instead signed on to a European Union copyright directive that lets publishers negotiate their agreements directly with platforms. https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/06/after-8-years-google-news-returns-to-spain/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/06/after-8-years-google-news-...

lonk11 3y ago

I recommend this podcast episode on the financial interests involved: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/podcast/episode-172-marc-edge-on-bill-c-18-and-the-postmedia-effect/ https://www.michaelgeist.ca/podcast/episode-172-marc-edge-on...

kevincox 3y ago

> Canadian users will still be able to search for news content from international outlets such as BBC, New York Times and Fox News. This is really the icing on the cake for me. Not only are you losing a lot of search traffic, but now those users are going to be directed to international sources so they won't even be looking for you. What a great way to screw over national media.