Response to Google open letter
accc.gov.au
Response to Google open letter
1–10 of 330 posts
Re: Response to Google open letter
#2Google misrepresenting something which might cut into their profits? Who'd have thought it?
I hate AMP, and this law might see the death or at least reigning in of it. I hate the way Google has killed niche websites by scraping their content and then profiting from it. I hate the way Google says they want to keep user data safe, while also using that data to increase their ad revenue. Fuck Google.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#3I feel like this time it's different , google (and big tech it represents) will get little sympathy on reddit and other watering holes. Even if the law seems restricting, it's Google who broke the social contract of the internet and turned from a benevolent rent-seeker to a feudal lord. (E.g. check this: https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing , google just pastes the lyrics and there is NO link to read them on the original site. Even if musixmatch is getting paid , they are made irrelevant and this is a poisoned pill).
Reading the defenses here in HN, I have become personally partial to conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here.
Plus i don't get what the fuss is about google news. I don't think it's used much outside the US, and even these websites aren't just going to lose all their traffic, because people are addicted to news. They 'll be partly visiting local websites more often, and this shift may actualy be enough to revive the income-starved journalism profession.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#4The misinformation seems to be in the ACCC letter, since the Google letter [0] doesn't claim that they'd have to charge for Google Search or Youtube.
Not surprising that they would try to use the current mood regarding tech companies to defend the government's position though.
[0] https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open...
Re: Response to Google open letter
#5They really should stop saying "Australian news media" when they are referring to commercial entities only.
The fact that the public ABC and SBS media are not allowed to be compensated says everything about the intent and motivation of this policy.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#6> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.
> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.
I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter.
They didn't mention charging for services at all. They said "the free services you use may be at risk". Given the context, I took that to mean the quality of the service would tank if they had to share their algorithm changes.
The data portion is a little less clear. Google was very weasel wordy - they definitely wanted it to sound like they would have to turn over user data, but if you read carefully they only say they would have to share data about how they collect the user data.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#7I feel like this time it's different , google (and big tech it represents) will get little sympathy on reddit and other watering holes. Even if the law seems restricting, it's Google who broke the social contract of the internet and turned from a benevolent rent-seeker to a feudal lord. (E.g. check this: https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing , google just pastes the lyrics and there is NO link to read the…
Google's lyrics are licensed from Musixmatch.
They are not scraping them from websites who as always are completely free to exempt themselves from searches via the sitemap.xml file.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#8I feel like this time it's different , google (and big tech it represents) will get little sympathy on reddit and other watering holes. Even if the law seems restricting, it's Google who broke the social contract of the internet and turned from a benevolent rent-seeker to a feudal lord. (E.g. check this: https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing , google just pastes the lyrics and there is NO link to read the…
Google's lyrics are licensed from Musixmatch. They are not scraping them from websites who as always are completely free to exempt themselves from searches via the sitemap.xml file.
The license is basically a death sentence (or alternatively a fragile lifeline) if the lyrics page is not being linked to. Former content producers for the open web have turned to content producers for Google. This is how serfdom works
Re: Response to Google open letter
#9They really should stop saying "Australian news media" when they are referring to commercial entities only. The fact that the public ABC and SBS media are not allowed to be compensated says everything about the intent and motivation of this policy.
That's.. awful. A Murdoch bill, then.
Do you know if bloggers etc can be compensated?
Re: Response to Google open letter
#10> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so. > Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so. I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter. They didn't mention charging for services at all. They said "the free ser…
They certainly imply they will either be removing services or putting them behind a paywall. Some choice quotes from the google letter:
> Hurting the free services you use ... demands that would put our free services at risk.