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Especially when the news organization is free to deny the request referred by a linking party who has not offered the expected compensation. It is not clear why

Especially when the news organization is free to deny the request referred by a linking party who has not offered the expected compensation. It is not clear why a new law is needed here when existing contract law already sufficiently covers the issue.

wubrr 3y ago
How would news organizations deny the request referred by a linking party? Are you talking about a technical denial - as in reject the HTTP request? I guess technically they can base something like this on HTTP referer header, but you can have links without referer info as well.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Referrer is exactly how you would do it. The idiocy here is that most of these publishers are likely customers of Google's ad networks anyways, and the clicks through to the articles are yielding ad revenue to them, and they likely are getting analytics and tracking that identifies exactly where the inbound traffic is coming from. It feels like a shakedown by people who are in other parts of the business totally disconnected from the web content / publishing arms, who likely know better?
  - wubrr 3y ago
    Referrer is basically optional though, you can specify a link to have no referrer : `<a href="example.com" rel="noreferrer">link</a>` , among other ways. It's true that the links only increase the revenue/traffic to their website though, so they should really be supporting the referrers rather than blocking them.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > you can specify a link to have no referrer : `<a href="example.com" rel="noreferrer">link</a>` , among other ways. But you wouldn't do that if you want the link to resolve. If you don't want it to work, why would you go to all of the trouble of creating the link in the first place?
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        And block people that use a bookmark or share the link via chat programs? I think almost no sites would do that.
        randomdata 3y ago
        They would if the users affected do not impact their bottom line. After all, the whole point of this is to keep out users who are not paying their 'fair share' via Google/Meta by proxy. But also, the technical solution to bookmarks and small-scale sharing between friends is quite obvious. You don't need referrers to solve that problem.
      - wubrr 3y ago
        Huh? The link would still resolve and work, just the referrer header wouldn't be set.
acdha 3y ago
What happens when they set a referrer policy no-referrer? I’m sure Google and Meta would say that’s to protect user privacy. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referrer-Policy https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re...
- randomdata 3y ago
  The simplest option is to treat it as a rejection. Users aren't going to be dreaming up (choosing a recent article at random) URIs like /politics/federal/chiefs-of-ontario-says-trudeau-s-carbon-price-is-discriminatory-and-demand-a-review/article_9c995f63-1e26-56c6-9048-79781a9b649c.html in order to get there without some referring party. Negotiations between Google/Meta and the news organization when defining the service contract can explore alternative options (access token, for example) should it be an imperative, for some reason, that the referrer still be inaccessible. People are allowed to talk to each other.
  - Y_Y 3y ago
    And if somebody sends you the link in an IM? Or if the browser fakes a referral from the news sites landing page?
    - randomdata 3y ago
      Any IM service not operated by a major tech company that the news organization wouldn't also want to collect compensation from is going see such a small number of referrals, who cares? Same goes for the number of people who are going to take the time to hack around it. Who cares?
  - cesarb 3y ago
    > Users aren't going to be dreaming up (choosing a recent article at random) URIs like <long url> in order to get there without some referring party. What about bookmarks? I don't think clicking on a bookmark on your browser is going to send any Referer header.

wubrr 3y ago

How would news organizations deny the request referred by a linking party? Are you talking about a technical denial - as in reject the HTTP request? I guess technically they can base something like this on HTTP referer header, but you can have links without referer info as well.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Referrer is exactly how you would do it. The idiocy here is that most of these publishers are likely customers of Google's ad networks anyways, and the clicks through to the articles are yielding ad revenue to them, and they likely are getting analytics and tracking that identifies exactly where the inbound traffic is coming from. It feels like a shakedown by people who are in other parts of the business totally disconnected from the web content / publishing arms, who likely know better?
- wubrr 3y ago
  Referrer is basically optional though, you can specify a link to have no referrer : `<a href="example.com" rel="noreferrer">link</a>` , among other ways. It's true that the links only increase the revenue/traffic to their website though, so they should really be supporting the referrers rather than blocking them.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > you can specify a link to have no referrer : `<a href="example.com" rel="noreferrer">link</a>` , among other ways. But you wouldn't do that if you want the link to resolve. If you don't want it to work, why would you go to all of the trouble of creating the link in the first place?
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      And block people that use a bookmark or share the link via chat programs? I think almost no sites would do that.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        They would if the users affected do not impact their bottom line. After all, the whole point of this is to keep out users who are not paying their 'fair share' via Google/Meta by proxy. But also, the technical solution to bookmarks and small-scale sharing between friends is quite obvious. You don't need referrers to solve that problem.
    - wubrr 3y ago
      Huh? The link would still resolve and work, just the referrer header wouldn't be set.

acdha 3y ago

What happens when they set a referrer policy no-referrer? I’m sure Google and Meta would say that’s to protect user privacy. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referrer-Policy https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re...

randomdata 3y ago
The simplest option is to treat it as a rejection. Users aren't going to be dreaming up (choosing a recent article at random) URIs like /politics/federal/chiefs-of-ontario-says-trudeau-s-carbon-price-is-discriminatory-and-demand-a-review/article_9c995f63-1e26-56c6-9048-79781a9b649c.html in order to get there without some referring party. Negotiations between Google/Meta and the news organization when defining the service contract can explore alternative options (access token, for example) should it be an imperative, for some reason, that the referrer still be inaccessible. People are allowed to talk to each other.
- Y_Y 3y ago
  And if somebody sends you the link in an IM? Or if the browser fakes a referral from the news sites landing page?
  - randomdata 3y ago
    Any IM service not operated by a major tech company that the news organization wouldn't also want to collect compensation from is going see such a small number of referrals, who cares? Same goes for the number of people who are going to take the time to hack around it. Who cares?
- cesarb 3y ago
  > Users aren't going to be dreaming up (choosing a recent article at random) URIs like <long url> in order to get there without some referring party. What about bookmarks? I don't think clicking on a bookmark on your browser is going to send any Referer header.