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Response to Google open letter

accc.gov.au

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Re: Response to Google open letter

#201

Post by pb7 »

ravingraven wrote: post #182
kevincox wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Google at least they have the option to opt-out. They can add a robots.txt file to prevent indexing. It isn't clear to me why special legislation is required to give the media companies bargaining power. They already have the power to say no if they don't think the arrangement is fair. (For facebook it is less clear, because you can't really force people to stop sharing your links)

Let us not kid ourselves, opting out of Google is suicide for any kind of content. Google is (sadly) critical internet infrastructure by now and lawmakers can not ignore it.

Let me get this straight. It’s suicide because of how much traffic Google sends your way and... you’re entitled to get be paid to receive that traffic... why?

Re: Response to Google open letter

#202

Post by pb7 »

romanovcode wrote: post #196
dannyr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's a search engine so it should rely heavily on third-party content in its search results. Google links to these news sites in search results and drives traffic to them. If Google grabs significant parts of news articles that users don't need to visit the sites, then Google should pay them. But Google is not doing that.

> But Google is not doing that. Google is doing that. Google is doing exactly that with AMP. Or with "in-page" results e.g. recent RapGenius lyrics scandal.

>recent RapGenius lyrics scandal

It got thrown out of court.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#203

Post by specialist »

esrauch wrote: post #191
specialist wrote: post #167

For the health of society, all recommender algorithms have to be daylighted. For a start. Yes, the gamification will be terrible. So what? Is maximal advertising revenue for monopolies societally important? Every other efficient open market is heavily regulated. Accountability, transparency, fair play, information symmetry, prohibit self-dealing & conflicts of interest, tort, etc. Right now we can't even imagine appl…

> Yes, the gamification will be terrible. So what? Is maximal advertising revenue for monopolies societally important? I don't really see how gamification being terrible will only cause ad revenue to drop. Surely it will also make the results worse and less relevant to you? As in, if SEO spam managed to take over the top results of major queries, it doesn't just drop ad revenue but actually makes Search suck, right?

How could future results be any worse?

Re: Response to Google open letter

#204

Post by zrm »

corty wrote: post #120
borland wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

The "worse results" probably stem from the part of the law about changes in pagerank algorithms: If search engines are required to notify about changes in algorithm and provide mitigations for those changes, the easiest way to provide this would be: Keep the algorithm as it is, never change it again (for Australia) and accept the degradation that will result from that.

Not only that, it would allow SEO companies to sign up as "news organizations" and then use the knowledge gained about the ranking algorithm to fill everyone's search results with SEO spam even more than it already is.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#205

Post by specialist »

Grimm1 wrote: post #170
specialist wrote: post #167

For the health of society, all recommender algorithms have to be daylighted. For a start. Yes, the gamification will be terrible. So what? Is maximal advertising revenue for monopolies societally important? Every other efficient open market is heavily regulated. Accountability, transparency, fair play, information symmetry, prohibit self-dealing & conflicts of interest, tort, etc. Right now we can't even imagine appl…

I don't disagree with you but not all reccomenders are causing the political issues we see now. As an example, what Netflix movies are being recommended to you is, in my opinion, immaterial. I think there needs to be nuanced law here maybe just targeting and regulating recommendations on what we would consider news or communications platforms.

IDK. I feel pretty siloed on Netflix today. And I wander how 3rd party content producers feel about Netflix's recommenders.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#206

Post by pb7 »

RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #20

Google is totally in the wrong here, and ACCC is doing its usual good work of protecting the Aussie consumer. It's interesting to watch Google try to squirm out of this though - they probably see it for the precedent it is. Google relies heavily on third-party content that they don't pay for in search results. If this law forces them to negotiate payment for that practice then I'm all for it.

>Google relies heavily on third-party content that they don't pay for in search results

If you’re so confident that’s the case, then you support Google removing that content entirely from search, yes?

Re: Response to Google open letter

#208

Post by clouddrover »

jddj wrote: post #133
clouddrover wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google gets content and advertising revenue, journalists are not getting enough return for their work. It's not sustainable.

The journalists doing good work would be almost entirely excluded by this law. This money would go to an organisation which largely peddles outrage and division.

> This money would go to an organisation which largely peddles outrage and division.

Frankly that's Google, Facebook, and Twitter. They are aimed at maximising engagement and outrage does that for them. They keep feeding people what they think they want to see and the further down the rabbit hole they go the weirder and more extreme it gets.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#209

Post by wrkronmiller »

specialist wrote: post #203
esrauch wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, the gamification will be terrible. So what? Is maximal advertising revenue for monopolies societally important? I don't really see how gamification being terrible will only cause ad revenue to drop. Surely it will also make the results worse and less relevant to you? As in, if SEO spam managed to take over the top results of major queries, it doesn't just drop ad revenue but actually makes Search suck, right?

How could future results be any worse?

In the worst case: search becomes completely unusable because the top pages of every major set of search terms is taken up by nonsense blog-spam.

That is absolutely not currently the case.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#210

Post by clouddrover »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #153
clouddrover wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? They'll be crushed like bugs by the first lawsuit that comes along. The only way they'd survive is by producing fawning, uncritical reports, like almost every interview done with movie stars.

As long as the courts are fair, there's no problem here.

Lawsuits cost money. There's nothing but problems here. You're asking them to go bankrupt.
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