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Google: Open Letter to Australians

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Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#301

Post by thu2111 »

sjy wrote: post #268
wombatmobile wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link to the new legislation or description thereof?

Concepts paper and draft legislation published by the ACCC: https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m... HN discussed this when the draft legislation was published: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24006150

This law is the latest iteration of newspaper's attempts to turn Google into an ATM for the industry.

The first attempt was in Germany. The law said search engines must pay newspapers to index their content. However it didn't specify what the price should be, so Google simply negotiated a fee of zero and the law was in effect nullified.

The second attempt was in Spain. It is the same law, but this time they added a clause that said the fee can't be zero. So Google News was shut down in Spain and the law was in effect nullified again.

The third attempt is in EU and Australia. In Australia it's the same law, but this time it says the fees both cannot be zero and that you aren't allowed to shut down your service. In the EU the assumption is Google can't pull out, so if a Spain-style law is passed at the Commission level then Google have to pay up.

What comes next? My guess - either this is the point where Google breaks or they pull out of Australia completely. They did it on principle for China, once, and that was a drastically larger market. But it's not the same company it once was.

It may be that Google/FB just decide indexing news isn't worth it. Bing can serve loss-making news queries. Or someone would set up a news-focused search engine in the USA that doesn't have any legal presence anywhere else. Indexing news is a much more tractable problem than indexing the entire web especially with advances in AI-driven NLP. However, there's the question of how to get people to pay for it.

edit: apparently the law is a bill of attainder and names who it applies to specifically, note these laws are unconstitutional in the USA (at least theoretically).

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#302

Post by drevil-v2 »

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…

Talk about misdirection by a shill. You are conflating two completely different issues. Google is getting away with corporate murder. That is the crux of the matter at hand.

- Google does not pay taxes. And - They don't pay for content

You are attempting to distract from Google's shortcomings by attacking Aus Govt, Murdoch news orgs. So f*ing disingenuous.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#303

Post by mgraczyk »

lokedhs wrote: post #255
mgraczyk wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If adding widgets to products caused the product revenue to double, then you probably wouldn't call it a bubble.

My previous response was probably a bit snarky. My point was that if this is something that you worked on and you realise that your revenue doubled, then it's probably very easy to justify that to oneself that this is indeed what the users want. After all, you don't hear any negative points, which is what a filter bubble is.

It's not possible to truly know what they want, but it is possible to ask them. Almost all people say they want more personalized content, especially for entertainment. Those who don't want it are free to opt out. The real bubble is around the belief that products with billions of active users somehow thrive without giving users what they want.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#305

Post by TheRealSteel »

thu2111 wrote: post #297
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>corrupt entities in Australia They have also seriously damaged the media in the US and the UK. Its no wonder all 3 countries are having serious issues with news.

That's an anglo-centric perception. Which countries has Google News been banned in? Spain. China. Germany briefly until Google told the news orgs they'd never pay, so could license their content for free or disappear from News and search. Newspapers trying to screw Google out of money by pressuring politicians is not an Australia or News Corp specific problem. It's happening everywhere. Really, all it reveals is how…

The comments you were replying to are about News Corp, who have done done very specific damage to the Us, UK and Australia specifically.

As far as I know they operate in those 3 places. I'm not aware of any operation they have in Germany.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#306

Post by Qwertious »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #125
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…

In regards to parent commenters [0] link, this is the story that got a journalist's home raided by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) because she received leaked information (that turned out to be 100% correct) that the Department for Home Affairs was planning to allow the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to spy on Australian citizens. Directly quoting from the linked article: ASD powers have been a source of co…

>The straight-up lying by one of Australia's highest ranked politicians bodes poorly, and goes hand-in-hand with Federal Police raiding a journalists home.

As an aside, this is par for the course on our current government. They don't have policy, just lies and fearmongering.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#307

Post by mcv »

berkes wrote: post #277
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…

> I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, If you ignore who does it worst in pracice, the most important argument becomes apparent: The Austrialian government is a democratically assigned entity; one that has (or should have?) checks and balances in place; one that is closely monitored as your various references prove. Google, a foreign private entity has no su…

True, and I absolutely support regulation where necessary. I strongly support regulation that require companies to handle user data in a confidential manner, for example. But that doesn't make all regulation automatically good; I strongly oppose regulation that requires companies to share sensitive user data with anyone who asks for it, for example. And forcing a company to do business it does not want to do, seems unreasonably oppressive.

In this particular case, if Google barely makes any money on linking to news sites, and the law says they need to pay a lot of money to link to those sites, then the obvious business decision is not to link to those sites at all, which will likely hurt news sites, because they get less visitors.

There are levels of regulation that will hurt the market, rather than help it, and this sounds like it might be one of those.

I recognise the right and need of democratic governments to regulate markets, but I also recognise that this can turn the government into an authoritarian seat of power, that serves power, rather than the people. This democratic accountability needs to work, needs to be used, needs to be obeyed by the government. So that makes it good that Google shares with the Australian public what's going on.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#308

Post by fauigerzigerk »

berkes wrote: post #277
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…

> I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, If you ignore who does it worst in pracice, the most important argument becomes apparent: The Austrialian government is a democratically assigned entity; one that has (or should have?) checks and balances in place; one that is closely monitored as your various references prove. Google, a foreign private entity has no su…

On the other hand, the government is a true monopoly (for good reason) so you can't just stop being their "customer" whenever you like.

You may end up spending your entire life oppressed by your fellow citizens who may be indifferent towards your needs.

So I think there is a good reason for not having the government directly run everything. It wouldn't even mean democratic control over everything. It would mean bureaucratic control, very indirectly influenced by a democratic choice between a handful of parties once every 4 or 5 years.

Both government and voluntary agreements between individuals and companies have their place. What governments should do is make sure that our interaction with Google and other tech giants is indeed voluntary and transparent.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#309

Post by wombatmobile »

sjy wrote: post #268
wombatmobile wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link to the new legislation or description thereof?

Concepts paper and draft legislation published by the ACCC: https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m... HN discussed this when the draft legislation was published: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24006150

Thanks sjy

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#310

Post by shard972 »

knorker wrote: post #271
chris_wot wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here is another Australian who says "Oi mate, Google don't want to pay taxes for profits they made in Australia. They don't want to invest in schools, universities, infrastructure or anything else through reasonable taxation. Google are fucking over Australians".

But it's orthogonal. It's like you're saying you want to be fucked by both Google and the government. Why do two wrongs make a right, to you? Again: cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Why would it be a net loss to australia or any other nation if they instead just developed search engines locally? Is search really so impossible that only in America can they can possibly get enough talent to do web search?

At a time when Australia is wanting to expand it's technology sector, seems like a simple solution if google just leaves and it's replaced by an local company that is willing to pay its fair share.

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