31–40 of 330 posts
This feels like a slap in the face. Whoever wrote this would be fully aware that our media sector is anything but healthy, and that our “democracy” flatlined years ago.
I can only imagine that this was written by a committee that was sinking beers and laughing their asses off as they watched this post go live.
> 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.
Some possibile outcomes:
Imagine a page with only foreign results. Plenty of news entities cover Australian news, and a result like this: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=victoria+australia+covid could very easily nix the news box, and any and all Australian news results and content.
Google could take the attitude that all Australian news sites that require payment have a robots.txt with:
Disallow: /
I can't imagine any law that both demands Google crawl sites AND demands payment for it will survive being contested in the courts. You can't both compel and enforce - it is one or tother, and if it costs Google to crawl your site, why should Google crawl your site?
I can see a news site, like The Guardian, agreeing to give Google their news for free, and getting all the SERP links as a consequence. I can imagine Google doing deals with all manner of sites for nothing, where the value of 100% of News traffic from Google is likely millions.
I have no idea what the proposal of the ACCC is (and I'm Australian) but this seems a really weird case, where the unintended consequences could be almost anything, and the likely outcome is more likely to be bad for Australian sites than beneficial.
> 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…
> I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter. Agreed. And because this ACCC response doesn't link to the letter, I think these rebuttals to non-existent claims are deceptively misleading
> 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Google can probably do voice recognition now on songs and get the lyrics without outside parties (see youtube cc which is pretty good).
Or they can strike a deal with music companies to get lyrics when they get the songs...
> 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…
> 52S.(1).(a) ensure that the registered news business corporation is provided with flexible content moderation tools that allow the registered news business corporation to remove or filter comments on the registered news business covered news content that:
> . . (i) are made using the digital platform service;and
> . . (ii) are made on a part of the digital platform service that is set up and able to be edited by the registered news business;
> (b) ensure that the registered news business corporation can disable the making of such comments;
If I'm reading that correctly, if someone posts a news corporation to Facebook, the news corporation gets to delete / edit / moderate any Facebook replies.
I think they (the legislators) have lost the plot.
In another section the draft legislation requires Facebook / Google to notify the news organisation of changes to their page rank / feed algorithm, and also provide advice on how to mitigate the effects of those changes.
Google's claim the bill grants news media business special privileges no other organisation on the planet has is not too far from the truth.
[0] https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...
I 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 success of Walmart created an environment where only good business decisions in a short term destroyed of the brand and profits in the long term.
(1) If supplier did not deal trough Walmart, their market gradually declined because Big-Box Retailers squeezed out alternative channels.
(2) Eventually supplier made deal with Walmart to stop decline in the market share. First years saw profits increase and huge increase in sales. But Walmart buyers come in regularly every year and demand smaller price. And they don't take no as an answer. They are ruthless negotiators and religious about cutting prices. First supplier profit margins drop, then absolute profits, then they must cut the quality of the product. Eventually they have destroyed their brand and the product.
There are hundreds of suppliers who suffered this fate. Destruction of Levi Strauss brand and quality is classic business case.
> 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…
Somehow everyone misses this little gem in the draft bill [0]: > 52S.(1).(a) ensure that the registered news business corporation is provided with flexible content moderation tools that allow the registered news business corporation to remove or filter comments on the registered news business covered news content that: > . . (i) are made using the digital platform service;and > . . (ii) are made on a part of the digi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's.. awful. A Murdoch bill, then. Do you know if bloggers etc can be compensated?
To be eligible for the scheme, the proposed bill requires annual revenues of at least[0] $150,000 (amongst other things), so I imagine it would exclude most independent-journalist-running-a-blog situations [0] see section 52G of the draft bill - https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m...
> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services
Google did not state this. The ACCC - the supposed detached "fair" regulator, in charge of creating this code, just made something up to suit their own ends.
> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses
The code [1] literally says:
"The responsible digital platform must ... give information about how the registered news business corporation can gain access to ... the data that the digital platform service collects (whether or not it shares the data with the registered news business)about the registered news business’ users through their engagement with covered news content made available by the digital platform service" (Page 10, Section 52M).
The ACCC here is straight up lying. I would like any of the people vocally defending it here to say what they think about this.
NB: I think it is quite telling that it's quite hard to dig out the actual draft code [1] - they don't seem to link to it in any of their press releases etc. They actually don't want people to be able to discuss this openly from what I can tell:
[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...