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Google is trying to "punish" Canada for bill C-18 [1]. It is absolutely gross, bully-like corporate behaviour and ultimately should earn Google much more scruti

Google is trying to "punish" Canada for bill C-18 [1]. It is absolutely gross, bully-like corporate behaviour and ultimately should earn Google much more scrutiny. For those who don't know, bill C-18 required Google and others to pay Canadian news orgs if they scrape and present their content. This is exactly the battle Australia had with Google (Australia won, btw), but now that Canada has moved forward Google has decided to make an example for all the other mid-tier countries. And of course C-18 has jack shit to do with BartGPT, and right now Canada has virtually zero privacy laws regarding LLMs. There is the rumblings, just as there is in every other country, and which are far more ominous and threatening in the EU, but Canada is almost always lockstep with the US on that sort of thing. My general opinion of Google was not great -- laggardly corporation that lost most innovation and now is just riding the past -- but this sends it right off a cliff. [1] - Google knows they can weaponize the bootlicker sorts, who have already flooded Canadian niches of the tubes to tell everyone to Leave Google Alone, and how mean the government is, etc.

canadiantim 3y ago
As a Canadian I am glad that Google is taking this stand. If Canada succeeds in its current implementation of Bill C-18 it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada rapidly accelerating the decline in journalism here. Not to mention the morales of taxing the free flow of information on the internet. So as a Canadian, THANK YOU GOOGLE!
- llm_nerd 3y ago
  >If Canada succeeds in its current implementation of Bill C-18 it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada rapidly accelerating the decline in journalism here. Every media org is behind C-18. Even PostMedia, about as "right wing" as it gets here, is behind C-18. C-18 is complex. I have paid little attention to it as it isn't my field and I honestly don't care that much about it. But your take is quite humorous in the context.
  - canadiantim 3y ago
    Every LARGE media organization is behind C-18, because they will get some money from it (not even that much, most of it goes to Rogers, Bell and the CBC; the PBO suggests only $80 million split between newspapers in Canada from the bill, and that's only if Meta and Google don't withdraw from the market which they are currently intent on doing). Almost every Independent media organization is against C-18, because they will receive no benefit whatsoever from the Bill. Instead they receive irreperable harm in having their revenue and traffic sources from Meta and Google shut off, which for an industry already desperately hanging on by a thread is a significant blow and will result in the bankruptcies of most independent media organizations in Canada.
    - llm_nerd 3y ago
      This is some seriously tenuous rationalizations. Your original statement- "it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada rapidly accelerating the decline in journalism here" And by "media organizations" and "journalism" you are No true scotsman leveraging and actually talking about, I guess, some guy with a YouTube channel? Every local paper is owned by one of the majors. They are the source for the overwhelming bulk of Canadian news actually consumed by the Canadian public. Name a single "independent media" that is your holistic all Canadian media and journalism? The Rebel and its dozens of readers? >If Meta and Google don't withdraw from the market Then people can go to cbc.com, nationalpost.com, ctvnews.com, etc. That people ever relied upon Google or Facebook as an intermediary of news was folly.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    Isn't Postmedia trying to merge or be purchased by Torstar?
    - llm_nerd 3y ago
      How is that remotely relevant? Ignoring that they called it off (after talking about it for something like a week), PostMedia's kneejerk opinion to almost every issue is "pro business / anti-government". Yet PostMedia has repeatedly, openly stated their support for C-18.
- dunefox 3y ago
  Nice try, Bard!
- barbazoo 3y ago
  > If Canada succeeds in its current implementation of Bill C-18 it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada Can you walk me through what you think will happen please?
  - jsnell 3y ago
    Any company that's designated as being in scope of the link tax will choose to stop linking to Canadian news media but will continue linking to foreign media. Links from search engines and social media currently produce for billions of page views for Canadian news publishers. Some of those page views will be replaced by people visiting the news site directly. Some won't, as people consume less news or substitute foreign media for Canadian. The loss of those page views will mean a loss of ad impressions thus and ad revenue. In addition any deals these tech companies have already voluntarily made with Canadian news media will be terminated, since the companies have to choose all or nothing. They can't do anything at all with news content from any Canadian news publisher, unless they're willing to pay every news publisher. So there's no point in keeping those ongoing content deals active. I don't know if that'd qualify as "absolutely destruction", but it seems hard to believe there wouldn't be a negative impact.
    - barbazoo 3y ago
      > The loss of those page views will mean a loss of ad impressions thus and ad revenue. I think it's true that Canadian media orgs are generally in favour of this new law, correct me if I'm wrong. Why would they if this would destroy their business model? Or is the revenue from the people that will effectively be excluded not significant enough after all?
- jpambrun 3y ago
  Canada is a sovereign country. It can't really accept such a behavior from a corporation. I know a lot about C-18, but it is law now. Google will have to comply or the government will likely use it's force to make them.
  - canadiantim 3y ago
    Google is complying by removing news. The government is just throwing a tantrum because they didn’t understand the realistic consequences of their law. How in the world will the government use force to make them stay in the news business in Canada? Do you realize how absurd that is and draconian and just terrible?
crazygringo 3y ago
Do you have any evidence of this? Or are these just assumptions?
- llm_nerd 3y ago
  Google is in a very loud, very public fight with Canada about C-18. Canada has zero unique laws about LLMs, and actually has some of the weakest privacy laws among its peers. Canada is extremely pro corporate in this regards compared to the EU, for instance. Google opened BardGPT to everyone on the planet except for a few despotic governments....and Canada. Their stated reasoning was "regulatory uncertainty". That is farce.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    Unrelated. Privacy laws are most likely reason
    - llm_nerd 3y ago
      *WHAT PRIVACY LAWS*? Canada has incredibly weak, close to nonexistent privacy laws. Google didn't even claim what you're claiming, and instead cited "regulatory uncertainty", which is farcical. It's the same play oil companies do when they want their minions to declare that we should tax them less and give them more.
      - ipaddr 3y ago
        Which means uncertain about using data collected or uncertain about types of data collected. Oil companies are one of the most taxed industries. Google is not an oil company either. These country restrictions came out months before the bill. They are completely unrelated.
        llm_nerd 3y ago
        >Oil companies are one of the most taxed industries Norway benefits 10-fold more from their oil reserves than Canada does. Oil companies have been spectacularly profitable exploiting Canada, yet still there are "woe are the oil company" sorts that are easily leveraged. I hardly want to talk about oil companies, but it's a perfect example of where Canada being a small country that is easily exploited by mega multinationals comes into play. >These country restrictions came out months before the bill. They are completely unrelated. Google originally restricted BardGPT to just the US and the UK. They just opened it up to the world, barring only a couple of embargoed countries...and Canada. Do you understand the discussion you're actually taking part in?
Vermeulen 3y ago
"if they scrape and present their content" - and you don't think this is relevant to Bard? It's less them 'punishing' Canada, and more being uncertain how these insane linking laws will be applied to this new technology. If Bard can summarize a News article from Canada that is very relevant to C-18. Funny to call criticism of this bill 'bootlicker sorts' - when really your then defending the governments protection of the Canadian media oligarchy
- llm_nerd 3y ago
  >and you don't think this is relevant to Bard? Every LLM has serious copyright concerns that manifest in every nation on the planet. There is no scenario where C-18 has any relevance to this. They're all going to be sued by everyone all over the place and we'll see how it ends up. >when really your then defending the governments protection of the Canadian media oligarchy I have almost zero interest in the C-18 discussion. It has appeared on here countless times and I have made zero comments on it. I do chuckle when I see people say obviously nonsensical things (a common one is that Google makes no money from scraping news -- if Google is doing something, they are, or are trying to, make money from it), but whatever. Even in this discussion I haven't defended the law whatsoever, as I just don't know enough about it. And nowhere did I say that criticism of it makes someone a bootlicker, so this is all a strawman regardless.
  - Vermeulen 3y ago
    How can you so confidently say C-18 has no relevance to this - then in the same comment say you don't know enough about the law to comment on it? If you don't understand C-18 that's fine - but then you can't confidently say that it can't apply to Bard. Seems pretty clear based on how C-18 is written that it absolutely could. You have the ability to doublethink here to the point of arguing is likely pointless - but clearly by saying Google knows they can 'weaponize the bootlicker sorts' you are calling people who criticize this bill 'bootlicker's.
    - llm_nerd 3y ago
      "How can you so confidently say C-18 has no relevance to this" Even Google isn't claiming it is... It is pretty ironic that you repeatedly claim that a bill is directly responsible for it when Google, despite being in a very public fight about it, isn't even claiming this. "but clearly by saying Google knows they can 'weaponize the bootlicker sorts' you are calling people who criticize this bill " Clearly I did not. Ever. You are strawmanning in a way that is absolutely agains the spirit of HN and is grossly unproductive. Attacking me as thinking in "doublethink" (because you inject your own strawman interpretations) isn't productive. Criticize the bill all you want! But if Google throws a tantrum about it because it threatens a revenue pipeline, doing the "See, this is what you get!" bit is being a bootlicker. Mega corps always have the eager sort ready to tow the line for them and do the dirty work for them.

canadiantim 3y ago

As a Canadian I am glad that Google is taking this stand. If Canada succeeds in its current implementation of Bill C-18 it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada rapidly accelerating the decline in journalism here. Not to mention the morales of taxing the free flow of information on the internet. So as a Canadian, THANK YOU GOOGLE!

llm_nerd 3y ago
>If Canada succeeds in its current implementation of Bill C-18 it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada rapidly accelerating the decline in journalism here. Every media org is behind C-18. Even PostMedia, about as "right wing" as it gets here, is behind C-18. C-18 is complex. I have paid little attention to it as it isn't my field and I honestly don't care that much about it. But your take is quite humorous in the context.
- canadiantim 3y ago
  Every LARGE media organization is behind C-18, because they will get some money from it (not even that much, most of it goes to Rogers, Bell and the CBC; the PBO suggests only $80 million split between newspapers in Canada from the bill, and that's only if Meta and Google don't withdraw from the market which they are currently intent on doing). Almost every Independent media organization is against C-18, because they will receive no benefit whatsoever from the Bill. Instead they receive irreperable harm in having their revenue and traffic sources from Meta and Google shut off, which for an industry already desperately hanging on by a thread is a significant blow and will result in the bankruptcies of most independent media organizations in Canada.
  - llm_nerd 3y ago
    This is some seriously tenuous rationalizations. Your original statement- "it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada rapidly accelerating the decline in journalism here" And by "media organizations" and "journalism" you are No true scotsman leveraging and actually talking about, I guess, some guy with a YouTube channel? Every local paper is owned by one of the majors. They are the source for the overwhelming bulk of Canadian news actually consumed by the Canadian public. Name a single "independent media" that is your holistic all Canadian media and journalism? The Rebel and its dozens of readers? >If Meta and Google don't withdraw from the market Then people can go to cbc.com, nationalpost.com, ctvnews.com, etc. That people ever relied upon Google or Facebook as an intermediary of news was folly.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Isn't Postmedia trying to merge or be purchased by Torstar?
  - llm_nerd 3y ago
    How is that remotely relevant? Ignoring that they called it off (after talking about it for something like a week), PostMedia's kneejerk opinion to almost every issue is "pro business / anti-government". Yet PostMedia has repeatedly, openly stated their support for C-18.
dunefox 3y ago
Nice try, Bard!
barbazoo 3y ago
> If Canada succeeds in its current implementation of Bill C-18 it will absolutely destroy the revenue for media organizations in Canada Can you walk me through what you think will happen please?
- jsnell 3y ago
  Any company that's designated as being in scope of the link tax will choose to stop linking to Canadian news media but will continue linking to foreign media. Links from search engines and social media currently produce for billions of page views for Canadian news publishers. Some of those page views will be replaced by people visiting the news site directly. Some won't, as people consume less news or substitute foreign media for Canadian. The loss of those page views will mean a loss of ad impressions thus and ad revenue. In addition any deals these tech companies have already voluntarily made with Canadian news media will be terminated, since the companies have to choose all or nothing. They can't do anything at all with news content from any Canadian news publisher, unless they're willing to pay every news publisher. So there's no point in keeping those ongoing content deals active. I don't know if that'd qualify as "absolutely destruction", but it seems hard to believe there wouldn't be a negative impact.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    > The loss of those page views will mean a loss of ad impressions thus and ad revenue. I think it's true that Canadian media orgs are generally in favour of this new law, correct me if I'm wrong. Why would they if this would destroy their business model? Or is the revenue from the people that will effectively be excluded not significant enough after all?
jpambrun 3y ago
Canada is a sovereign country. It can't really accept such a behavior from a corporation. I know a lot about C-18, but it is law now. Google will have to comply or the government will likely use it's force to make them.
- canadiantim 3y ago
  Google is complying by removing news. The government is just throwing a tantrum because they didn’t understand the realistic consequences of their law. How in the world will the government use force to make them stay in the news business in Canada? Do you realize how absurd that is and draconian and just terrible?

crazygringo 3y ago

Do you have any evidence of this? Or are these just assumptions?

llm_nerd 3y ago
Google is in a very loud, very public fight with Canada about C-18. Canada has zero unique laws about LLMs, and actually has some of the weakest privacy laws among its peers. Canada is extremely pro corporate in this regards compared to the EU, for instance. Google opened BardGPT to everyone on the planet except for a few despotic governments....and Canada. Their stated reasoning was "regulatory uncertainty". That is farce.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Unrelated. Privacy laws are most likely reason
  - llm_nerd 3y ago
    *WHAT PRIVACY LAWS*? Canada has incredibly weak, close to nonexistent privacy laws. Google didn't even claim what you're claiming, and instead cited "regulatory uncertainty", which is farcical. It's the same play oil companies do when they want their minions to declare that we should tax them less and give them more.
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      Which means uncertain about using data collected or uncertain about types of data collected. Oil companies are one of the most taxed industries. Google is not an oil company either. These country restrictions came out months before the bill. They are completely unrelated.
      - llm_nerd 3y ago
        >Oil companies are one of the most taxed industries Norway benefits 10-fold more from their oil reserves than Canada does. Oil companies have been spectacularly profitable exploiting Canada, yet still there are "woe are the oil company" sorts that are easily leveraged. I hardly want to talk about oil companies, but it's a perfect example of where Canada being a small country that is easily exploited by mega multinationals comes into play. >These country restrictions came out months before the bill. They are completely unrelated. Google originally restricted BardGPT to just the US and the UK. They just opened it up to the world, barring only a couple of embargoed countries...and Canada. Do you understand the discussion you're actually taking part in?

Vermeulen 3y ago

"if they scrape and present their content" - and you don't think this is relevant to Bard? It's less them 'punishing' Canada, and more being uncertain how these insane linking laws will be applied to this new technology. If Bard can summarize a News article from Canada that is very relevant to C-18. Funny to call criticism of this bill 'bootlicker sorts' - when really your then defending the governments protection of the Canadian media oligarchy

llm_nerd 3y ago
>and you don't think this is relevant to Bard? Every LLM has serious copyright concerns that manifest in every nation on the planet. There is no scenario where C-18 has any relevance to this. They're all going to be sued by everyone all over the place and we'll see how it ends up. >when really your then defending the governments protection of the Canadian media oligarchy I have almost zero interest in the C-18 discussion. It has appeared on here countless times and I have made zero comments on it. I do chuckle when I see people say obviously nonsensical things (a common one is that Google makes no money from scraping news -- if Google is doing something, they are, or are trying to, make money from it), but whatever. Even in this discussion I haven't defended the law whatsoever, as I just don't know enough about it. And nowhere did I say that criticism of it makes someone a bootlicker, so this is all a strawman regardless.
- Vermeulen 3y ago
  How can you so confidently say C-18 has no relevance to this - then in the same comment say you don't know enough about the law to comment on it? If you don't understand C-18 that's fine - but then you can't confidently say that it can't apply to Bard. Seems pretty clear based on how C-18 is written that it absolutely could. You have the ability to doublethink here to the point of arguing is likely pointless - but clearly by saying Google knows they can 'weaponize the bootlicker sorts' you are calling people who criticize this bill 'bootlicker's.
  - llm_nerd 3y ago
    "How can you so confidently say C-18 has no relevance to this" Even Google isn't claiming it is... It is pretty ironic that you repeatedly claim that a bill is directly responsible for it when Google, despite being in a very public fight about it, isn't even claiming this. "but clearly by saying Google knows they can 'weaponize the bootlicker sorts' you are calling people who criticize this bill " Clearly I did not. Ever. You are strawmanning in a way that is absolutely agains the spirit of HN and is grossly unproductive. Attacking me as thinking in "doublethink" (because you inject your own strawman interpretations) isn't productive. Criticize the bill all you want! But if Google throws a tantrum about it because it threatens a revenue pipeline, doing the "See, this is what you get!" bit is being a bootlicker. Mega corps always have the eager sort ready to tow the line for them and do the dirty work for them.