Google: Open Letter to Australians • Hacker News Board

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#231

Post by LatteLazy » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:26 AM UTC

sjy wrote: post #229

wombatmobile wrote: post #207

Obviously the Australian government is trying to make google pay just because Murdoch told it to. But the pretense is bizarre - that google has to pay Murdoch because it steals his content. Google doesn't republish News Corp content! It just lists headlines with URLs that readers click to go through to News Corp! Google is giving News Corp 70% of its traffic. Bizarre. What's to stop google from simply ceasing to inde…

Not indexing news content in order to avoid submitting to the proposed new law is itself prohibited under the new law.

Conspiracy theory time: that's what this is really about. Murdoch (Fox etc) know that they are next after Facebook gets done banning qanon nonsense. If Google audited the accuracy of Murdoch owned sources, it would have good reason to start delisting them. Murdoch knows he can't afford that. So this isn't about getting 1p per 1000 views or something. It's about being assured a high search result placement for his disinformation.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#232

Post by einpoklum » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:26 AM UTC

> The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of businesses - news media businesses - over everyone else

They already give unfair advantage to mainstream news media over other sources of news and commentary. They artificially boost "credible sources" or "reliable sources" or whatever they call them; and also refrain entirely from recommending some sources which they disapprove of (right-wing, left-wing, world states which oppose the US etc.). On YouTube this has been very apparent in the list of recommended videos (at least if you're reading about US and world news). On the search engine itself it may be less pronounced, but they are actively doing that as well to some extent; see:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-...

or if you can't get past the Paywall, see:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/18/pers-n18.html

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#233

Post by neiman » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:28 AM UTC

discordance wrote: post #119

Google evil etc etc aside, they have been decent custodians of their users data. I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, who recently admitted they spy on their citizens [0], can coerce citizens and companies to install backdoors into their companies software [1]. I trust Murdoch less than the government, and much much less than Google. Remember when Murdoch in…

> Google evil etc etc aside, they have been decent custodians of their users data.

They've been decent custodians to data they force users to give. It's like complimenting whoever stole my bike last year for taking good care of it.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#234

Post by chillfox » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:29 AM UTC

harry8 wrote: post #227

chillfox wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murdoch gave up his citizenship in 1985, he has not been Australian for a long time.

Murdoch shouldn't be allowed to own media in Australia, IMHO. This is an entirely separate issue to dealing with Google and Facebook who absolutely must be dealt with the world over.

Yep, I agree with you on both points.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#235

Post by triceratops » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:29 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #201

triceratops wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, you're right. The government that can demand backdoors in any software product. That's a lot better. /s I didn't say the US Senate is a lot better, but to be completely fair there isn't a backdoor law in the US yet . It's possible Australia was the testing ground for that type of legislation though.

I didn't say it was better, I said that the description wasn't correct. If we're going to criticise something, we should describe it accurately -- otherwise our opponents can simply say "they're being hysterical and don't know what they're talking about". Heck, that's exactly what the ASD did when the vast majority of people were screaming about employees being individually targeted by the legislation (which wasn't a…

Sigh. You're right.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#236

Post by einpoklum » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:29 AM UTC

discordance wrote: post #119

Google evil etc etc aside, they have been decent custodians of their users data. I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, who recently admitted they spy on their citizens [0], can coerce citizens and companies to install backdoors into their companies software [1]. I trust Murdoch less than the government, and much much less than Google. Remember when Murdoch in…

> but they behave much better than the Australian government, who recently admitted they spy on their citizens [0], can coerce citizens and companies to install backdoors into their companies software [1].

But Google has exactly this. First, it collects and saves all its users' data, and can build very detailed profiles of probably each of us. Second, and perhaps more importantly, all the information going through their systems is also piped to the NSA, i.e. spying by the US government. This is what Edward Snowden revealed.

Murdoch may have illegally wiretapped celebrities, but Google legally "wiretaps", well, everyone - on their "wires".

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#237

Post by BigJono » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:30 AM UTC

golemiprague wrote: post #172

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #164

Google should just de-list News Corp and the other big media companies that dominate the Australian media industry and who often manipulate elections for their own benefit with one sided heavily biased coverage. Give some breathing space to the smaller players.

Dominate or not they represent half of the Australian population more or less. You can't just bring news from the Guardian and expect it to appeal to all Australian. The question is, if you don't want to show News Corp what else will you show in order to give a voice for the Australians on the right side of the political map?

Someone else will step in to take their place. The only reason News Corp is even in this position is because they completely overstepped their bounds with Murdoch's political fuckery. There's no reason you can't have a professional conservative news company that plays by the rules, and if there's a market for it, someone will fill it, just like anything else.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#238

Post by nl » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:31 AM UTC

harry8 wrote: post #221

Open comment from an Australian to google: "Pay your f#$king tax like the rest of us or shut the f%$ck up." This comment stands apart from any and all implications of their special interest policy pleadings above which are all pretty tedious in comparison. Google don't pay tax for profit made selling in Australia. To hell with them and literally any case they have to make.

Be that as it may, News Corp doesn't pay tax in Australia either, and I don't see why Google should have to pay what is effectively a tax to them!

Make them pay tax by all means, but why should it go straight to news corp?

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#239

Post by altindag » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:31 AM UTC

chillfox wrote: post #171

altindag wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting. it seems to me that if Google really wanted to influence Australian public opinion, they have far more sophisticated ways to go about it than this clumsy attempt at PSA outreach slash fear mongering. It's almost as if they need to be seen to be taking some responses to the media payment legislation but they don't really care. That's what's interesting to me. I wonder why they would not care. perhaps beca…

My guess, is that they will comply by either giving the media a copy of their "Quality Raters Guidelines", or just setup an office where the media can send staff to sit at a slow computer and view a billion lines of source code.

hehehe. yeah the due diligence document room. and lots of minified JavaScript UI code.

I love how companies can say complying with legislation would be overly burdensome. and how governments can make laws that have no technical reality. the interface between tech and law is pretty leaky and inefficient.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#240

Post by ssss11 » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 7:31 AM UTC

ajdlinux wrote: post #222

ssss11 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you draw the conclusion that the Australian people want this behaviour? As far as I can tell none us want this but once elected the politicians fail to action what the people want. Over and over again...

For any given political view espoused by members of a major political party, if you think "none of us" want it, you need to get out of your bubble. There's a lot of voters out there who are quite okay with the government doing what they think needs to be done to ensure national security.

Yeah, ok fair call - there must be some who want this. “None” was too bold.