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Google: Open Letter to Australians

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Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#51

Post by duud »

vmception wrote: post #16
skissane wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears they've blocked access to it from non-Australian IPs. Here is the HTML they serve to me: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/skissane/05bac6c78d99e359... Text: Open letter to Australians We need to let you know about new Government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube. A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse G…

> It appears they've blocked access to it from non-Australian IPs. Wow, just turned on my residential VPN and selected my Australian server, can confirm it does load. Didn't even have to clear cookies. Very sketchy google. Even if the Australian law has issues and alternatives cannot deliver for free, I would not support Google aims here. They are the big news business they are gaslighting into Australians into being…

They're not gaslighting. This is about News Corp (former owner of Fox News) and a few other multi billion dollar albeit unprofitable media companies using their political sway to extort Google. It will almost certainly result in a worse experience for consumers.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#52

Post by stirlo »

reaperducer wrote: post #43

To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

^ This.

I'm hearing heaps of people crying "Murdock" and "Newscorp" but how about local jobs and ownership vs a global conglomerate that doesn't give 2 f#%ks about our tiny 25 million population and takes $4.8 billion offshore while paying only $100 million tax[1].

The Australian Associate Press recently went bankrupt and needed a bailout from philanthropists[2]. As much as you dislike one particular section of old media it's essential that local media exists in a functional democracy. Google taking $4.8 billion of revenue out of the country strips these organisations of their funding without providing a replacement.

[1]https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-18/google-pays-more-tax-... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Associated_Press

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#53

Post by stirlo »

grecy wrote: post #47
reaperducer wrote: post #43

To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

In theory yes, but in reality the Australian-owned megacorps are all owned by a single person, and every single one of the media outlets they control endlessly pushes the political message of just one side. So although they're "Australian owned", they're very far from good "neutral" sources of information. (Source: am Australian) EDIT: For those wondering, it's like virtually all of Australia's media being run by Rus…

Fairfax has always provided a counter to newscorp and there's no reason this funding wouldn't be available to any new players that wanted to start up.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#54

Post by stirlo »

jp0d wrote: post #10

I'd probably trust the Australian govt to protect my data better than Google or even worse Facebook. The way the article has twisted the words in Google's favour is commendable though. Marketing really is everything.

Considering Google and Facebook are willing participants in PRISM [1] it can't be any worse

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#M...

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#55

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #11
ImaCake wrote: post #6

Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…

AFAIK you're missing a crucial point - they're trying to require G/FB to pay out billions to old (read: dying) media publications, which will crush small publications. On the Open Web, ABC News should get the exact same treatment at JoeBloggsYT2020.

[deleted]

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#56

Post by chrstphrknwtn »

mgraczyk wrote: post #18
ImaCake wrote: post #6

Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…

As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.

As someone who makes widgets, and can confidently assure you that you need widgets.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#57

Post by ethbro »

mgraczyk wrote: post #36
awalton wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confidently assure you that I've had that feature off for ages and could not possibly be happier about it.

It's definitely possible to have a good experience without personalization. Depending on how much you inherently value google not storing data about you, it may be the only way for you to be happy. But it's very unlikely the actual product experience would be worse with personalization enabled, measured by probability that a search includes something relevant near the top.

As someone who remembers the web before personalization, the product experience was better.

It may be true that Google has over-invested in personalization-driven features, and under-invested in user-neutral features.

Personalization belongs in the agent. Specifically, the agent that I own and control.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#58

Post by stirlo »

louisstow wrote: post #8

Open letter to Australians We need to let you know about new Government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube. A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia. # The way Aussie…

It's been highlighted below but the reason this is posted here and up voted is that Google choose to 404 any requests coming from non Australian IP addresses.

Hardly seems to be the thing you do when you're acting above board...

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#60

Post by skissane »

mgraczyk wrote: post #18
ImaCake wrote: post #6

Link to the draft law is below [0]. Quoted from that page: >The code also includes a set of ‘minimum standards’ for: >providing advance notice of changes to algorithmic ranking and presentation of news; appropriately recognising original news content; and >providing information about how and when Google and Facebook make available user data collected through users’ interactions with news content. This sounds great to…

As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.

I miss the old Google search, the one that didn't try to guess what I mean, but instead did exactly what I said.

I can see how for your average user "guess what I mean" might produce better and quicker results, but for power users (who are entirely comfortable with search syntax, and who sometimes may be searching incredibly obscure things), it produces a worse experience

The only type of search personalisation I want is the ability to exclude certain sites from my search results (bye bye Pinterest, bye bye Quora). Google used to offer that feature, but in more recent years it appears to have disappeared.

I particularly wish Google News Search had a way to exclude media sources I dislike. I am interested in Brexit, so I regularly search on that term, but then I get bombarded with a boatload of sensationalised crap from the Daily Express, a media outlet I'd prefer to pretend didn't exist

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