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Response to Google open letter

accc.gov.au

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Re: Response to Google open letter

#51

Post by borland »

rsa25519 wrote: post #13
gundmc wrote: post #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 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

The google letter makes non-existent claims that aren't part of the proposed law. Like that youtube and google will somehow magically offer worse results. They can offer the exact same results they do now - they might just have to pay for it. "If we had to pay more for news content, we would probably just cut it out because we don't want to pay - thus leading to worse results" doesn't quite have the same ring, does it :-)

As such the ACCC response is also full of bullshit. This is how politics go, and the sad part is that most people seem to simply read one side of the argument and go ranting off angrily based on the bullshit claims, rather than investigating the truth behind both sides

Re: Response to Google open letter

#52

Post by RVuRnvbM2e »

threeseed wrote: post #49
jay_kyburz wrote: post #46

This whole thing is really weird. We're bending over backwards to try and accommodate Google being allowed to profit from other peoples content. How about we simply ban Google and Facebook from reproducing news on their own site? And if we are truly believe "A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy." we need to punish both Google and content creators for publishing things that are demo…

> How about we simply ban Google and Facebook from reproducing news on their own site? You can. Just add the robots.txt to the website. But the news sites need Facebook/Google more than the other way around.

> But the news sites need Facebook/Google more than the other way around.

This is oft-quoted, but the media organisations seemed to be doing better before Google/Facebook became the middle-man siphoning off advertising revenue.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#53

Post by nocturnial »

Let's put aside whether Google had justified concerns about this legalislation.

What's more appriopriate? Having a company incite the people in a foreign country to change laws or do it using diplomacy using experts in your state departement?

We are only talking about allied countries to the US because google doesn't do this with, for example, china, russia, north korea, etc...

I'm NOT advocating they should do this with those countries. Rather they should get out of the politics business or accept the regulations that come with it.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#54

Post by hkt »

pwc wrote: post #19
hkt wrote: post #9

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...

Wow, that's vile. So clearly about incumbent media power rather than promoting diversity.

I wonder if eg wordpress, or ghost, would be able to create a situation for their hosted blogs in which authors were paid for their content by virtue of the organisation itself having the minimum level of revenue.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#55

Post by roenxi »

gundmc wrote: post #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 ser…

Weaselly words or otherwise, there is a big power imbalance here. The ACCC can ultimately make Google do what it wants and is backed by a government on this matter. Google has no control over the ACCC.

The ACCC is being irresponsible not dealing with - in precise terms - what Google actually said. Anything less verges on bullying. This isn't a public shouting match between equals.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#56

Post by clouddrover »

nl wrote: post #11
cblconfederate wrote: post #3

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…

> Reading the defenses here in HN, I have become personally partial to conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here. What do you mean? It's a ridiculous, arbitrary money grab used to fund old the old media mates of politicians. See Mike Cannon Brooke's (as someone who most definitely isn't getting paid by Google) thread to see how insane the rules are: https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/…

It's about funding journalism. What's Mike Cannon-Brooke's solution for funding journalism?

Re: Response to Google open letter

#57

Post by fungi »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #46

This whole thing is really weird. We're bending over backwards to try and accommodate Google being allowed to profit from other peoples content. How about we simply ban Google and Facebook from reproducing news on their own site? And if we are truly believe "A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy." we need to punish both Google and content creators for publishing things that are demo…

> How about we simply ban Google and Facebook from reproducing news on their own site?

News Corp is and always has been free to not have its content on Google (https://www.robotstxt.org/). But that's not what they want, they want a Money just for appearing in search results. Seems more like a rent seeking for News Corp.

> We're bending over backwards to try and accommodate Google

The funny/bizzare bit is we are bending over backwards to accommodate 2 multinational American corporate monopolies that don't even pay tax in this country.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#59

Post by vermilingua »

loktarogar wrote: post #30
thu2111 wrote: post #21

I'm very curious how this law wouldn't violate various free trade deals Australia has struck. Surely a tax that explicitly names only foreign companies is the opposite of free trade? Sure, China has driven a truck through the whole concept of the WTO over decades and so I doubt anything will happen. Free trade deals are very much toothless, on the assumption that they are supposed to make sense on their own terms so…

"Pay for what you use" isn't a tax. Also, AFAIK the government gets none of this money, but I might be wrong on that.

The government gets this money back in a) “business lunches”, gifts, etc; b) guaranteed industry “jobs” when their political careers end, which is far in the future due to; c) endless re-elections, as the entire media in this country exists as a Liberal Party PR firm.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#60

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mikemotherwell wrote: post #32
ImaCake wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That implies Google will change what Australians see vs other countries. No more. No less. 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 Au…

>That implies Google will change what Australians see vs other countries. No more. No less.

The letter is a threat, and it makes its threat by implication. The benefit of implying a threat is that it allows you to make any number of veiled threats without committing to any. If they wanted to say no more, no less, they would make a specific threat, but they want people to worry about things, so they make a vague threat.

So any possible threat that a reasonable person might suppose is meant by the letter achieves what Google wants with its letter. Australia has decided to take one of these potential threats and answer it, to make Google look bad, but it might also force Google to say that is not what we mean, the implied threat made more precise looses its power to frighten.

Of course none of this jockeying for position changes the fact that Australia is trying to pass a very bad law.

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