Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

ctvnews.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 503 posts

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#111

Post by throwawaycad11 »

monsieurgaufre wrote: post #97
jupp0r wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the problem. News outlets can now negotiate individually with Google if they still want the free traffic. Google will be paying $0 to them. Other outlets who don't want the free traffic from Google can choose to not receive it, as they can right now via robots.txt.

Traffic is generated by the content which is not free (most of the time) to produce. Google without content is what except an empty library? I'm not sure why people here are defending GOOG so much.

Canadian here as well.

Your assumption that traffic is generated by content (alone) is incorrect. Google is certainly profiting, but the news publisher will struggle to find readers without Google. It's a symbiotic relationship, but Google is doing the REAL work. If you don't believe that, build your own website and try to get people to read your content. Believe me, content doesn't matter as much as reach.

If you want to support Canadian news outlets, then go to their websites directly. Let's see them stand on their own without Google, and see who provides the most value.

This law will kill Canadian news outlets. No one pays for their content when there's a global ecosystem of stuff to subscribe to. That's capitalism. Good riddance.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#112

Post by wand3r »

monsieurgaufre wrote: post #97
jupp0r wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the problem. News outlets can now negotiate individually with Google if they still want the free traffic. Google will be paying $0 to them. Other outlets who don't want the free traffic from Google can choose to not receive it, as they can right now via robots.txt.

Traffic is generated by the content which is not free (most of the time) to produce. Google without content is what except an empty library? I'm not sure why people here are defending GOOG so much.

Speaking for myself, on the merits, Google's position makes more sense. On an emotional level, I dislike media news companies companies more than I dislike Google...which is a lot.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#114

Post by carlosjobim »

admax88qqq wrote: post #92
carlosjobim wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I search for something I want the best results for the query, and sometimes those are behind a paywall.

If I'm not willing to pay for a paywall then the "best" content is not behind a paywall, because I won't read it. My definition of "best" includes my ability to actually read the content under my terms.

If I ask you what is the best restaurant in town, will you answer that it's your mommas house because there you always eat for free?

Cost has nothing to do with determining the quality of a search result, and search engines shouldn't discriminate against paywalled content. But I think it's a good idea to let users like you check a box to hide paywalled results.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#115

Post by JamisonM »

dmayle wrote: post #42
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

This is the most ridiculous take on this that I've ever seen. Next you're going to say that newspaper stands need to pay a charge to the newspaper each time someone walks by their stall (or buys gum, for example). They have seen the headline, and then moved on. Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone buying that newspaper, the newspaper stand has got value from the headline…

This newspaper stand argument is really, really bad. The headlines of the physical newspaper on the front page are for the purposes of advertising the newspaper.. and the newspaper stand sells the newspapers - that's a big contribution to the newspaper business!

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#116

Post by petercooper »

reaperducer wrote: post #34
lordleft wrote: post #12

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd love some context for this.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

A headline's job is to provide enough information to encourage someone to read more if the story is relevant to them. If someone doesn't want to read on, no value is lost.

News sites could get rid of their and OpenGraph tags, and people could share the raw story URLs without any context. No-one would click through as they'd have no idea where the URL went, though, so news sites provide these titles willingly and have full control over how they write them or what level of detail they share.

The idea that headlines like "Queen Elizabeth has died", "Madonna discharged from hospital", or "Interest rates go up" replace the need for the rest of the story for any substantial part of the target audience seems far fetched to me, and if the meat of the story is given away in the og:description.. they wrote it!

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#117

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

pyrale wrote: post #64
paddw wrote: post #36

Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. Sometimes taking the simple view is correct: It's a bad thing to prevent sites from linking to one another. It's a bad thing to interfere with the ability to access information on the Internet for reasons of nationalist politics.

> Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. It's not just a matter of the targeted companies being Google and Meta, even though these two especially deserve it. It's the simple realization that good journalism requires good money, and that the current balance between news organizations and internet brokers isn't u…

Don't want people gazing on your property? Erect a fence. Nothing prevents media sites from implementing access controls to only allow paying customers.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#118

Post by daxfohl »

amusingimpala75 wrote: post #10
bratao wrote: post #5

Brazil is currently considering a similar law that would require social networks to compensate content creators for each republication [1]. However, unlike the situation in Canada, the Brazilian lawmakers have taken into account this scenario. The law mandates that social networks cannot cease publishing the content and must negotiate compensation in "fair terms." Personally, I find this approach to be quite perplexi…

So if I understand correctly, those companies are now going to be forced into paying for products that they cannot just stop using?

If they want to operate in the country. Is google going to leave whole countries just because of being required to use and compensate local news? Essentially it's a tariff.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#119

Post by intrasight »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #17
amusingimpala75 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I understand correctly, those companies are now going to be forced into paying for products that they cannot just stop using?

Or fighting a legal battle (which they will hopefully fight and win), or leaving the jurisdiction and then saying "good luck with that, let's find out how much of your companies' revenue we were driving".

If they just showed the title and the link - like they used to - they it would drive revenue. But because they show a synopsis of the news, people very often don't click the link.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#120

Post by tredre3 »

monsieurgaufre wrote: post #97
jupp0r wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the problem. News outlets can now negotiate individually with Google if they still want the free traffic. Google will be paying $0 to them. Other outlets who don't want the free traffic from Google can choose to not receive it, as they can right now via robots.txt.

Traffic is generated by the content which is not free (most of the time) to produce. Google without content is what except an empty library? I'm not sure why people here are defending GOOG so much.

As you say, Google without content is an empty library. But it works in the other direction too. News websites without Google/Social Media are ghost towns. Few people go to them directly.
Post reply on HN