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

ctvnews.ca

271–280 of 503 posts

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

#271

Most Canadian media is owned by asset-stripping American private equity firms, just like American newspapers. They just want to get paid, and have figured out a particular way that Canadian, Australian, German, and Californian legislators can be duped into it.

To be fair, a significant number of Australian legislators are practically owned by a particular AU/US media firm, so it's no great surprise that they can be duped/ordered into trying this.

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

#272
post #158

Now that I'm weaning myself off of reddit, my favorite "toilet reading" is news.google.com But since I'm in Canada, I suppose I'll go back to RSS or maybe AP news.

RSS is IMO the best way to follow multiple websites, not only news.

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

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really advertising when the user is specifically searching for news content. That's like saying the halibut fisherman is getting free advertising when you go to a restaurant and ask to see the menu.

That's not a good analogy because news sites don't sell their articles to Google, they get paid when users visit their sites. Google is promoting their websites and actively directing users to them, for free. Do I need to pay NYT when I recommend an article to my friends?

It's certainly not the greatest analogy - it's just meant to claim that you can't advertise something that someone's already looking for, including when you only know they're looking for it because they came to you asking for it. Google isn't doing any promotion, they're simply forwarding on the most accurate indexed page according to your query. Promotion and advertising would be generating demand that otherwise wouldn't exist, which is not the case in this scenario. You can argue Google is promoting one page over another, but for every page that's at the top, there's a page that's at the bottom, and so it's not generally promoting the collective news media in any way.

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

#274
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how we can call this nationalistic politics. I'm sure if a (hypothetical) Canadian big-tech impacted news organizations similarly, they would also have been a target of this law. Many of the biggest tech have origins in US and any country trying to make a law regulating businesses and technology within its borders is bound to impact American companies one way or the other. We can take the easy route and c…

Nobody denies its their right, but that doesn't mean it's not a very stupid action, motivated by dumb nationalism. You can't handwave circumstances away, as if the legislators don't know it is a cashgrab against foreign corporations and genuinely believe Google and Facebook are Canadian companies.

[flagged]

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

#275
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Google never ever does this. They do not want money they just work for kisses and they are not evil at all.

Every company tries to earn money, that's not a problem. The problem is when a company tries to legislate themselves to be owed money, or eliminate competition via various means, that it becomes a problem. Companies should earn my by building good competitive products.

One reason to advocate for a government with minimal power is to avoid the temptation to legislate preferential treatment. If the government has been granted more expansive powers, it is inevitable, and arguably rational, for those affected to try to steer regulations in a way that benefits them.

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

#276

Going a step further, I think google should stop crawling websites that are paywalled. When I search for something, I want to see results that I can click on. Not some snippets from NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg and others which are heavily paywalled.

Google isn't circumventing paywalls. Most paywalled sites whitelist search engines so that their content gets crawled and more people visit them.

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

#277

Most Canadian media is owned by asset-stripping American private equity firms, just like American newspapers. They just want to get paid, and have figured out a particular way that Canadian, Australian, German, and Californian legislators can be duped into it.

more like they shmoozed them to do it vs being duped.

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

#278
post #265
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I disagree with this kind of law: Was it just linking? Or was it providing a useful summary that essentially renders no need to click the provided link? + the link Otherwise I can see why Google and Meta got the law, while Reddit, Apple news and others don't.

Reddit and Apple News will have the law applied to them as well, since the law doesn't include a list of sites affected, just the criteria under which affected sites fall.

So when google said 2 companies it was also as disingenuous as when they said "only linking"

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

#279
post #207
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While Canada's bill may not be well-tuned, it is a welcome first attempt. The problem is media companies have been pushing this exact blueprint for d years. decades. It is a terrible, terrible template. If countries want to tax big tech and give the money to media organizations, they should be honest about it. Laws like this distort reality. >the current balance between news organizations and internet brokers isn't…

> This doesn't make sense. Newspapers want links to their stories. Newspapers want monetization. There are three ways linking to stories equal monetization: * Newspapers get enough ad money through these link. This mostly doesn't work. * Newspapers cut their costs and deliver shitty clickbait. * Newspapers get funded by "philantropy". This ranges from newspapers independently funded by trust funds to newspapers being…

Newspapers lost monetization when they lost their classifieds business.

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

#280
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No one pays. Journalism is a public good that will not exist if the current status quo continues. It’s in societies interest to ensure that doesn’t happen but everyone wants to free ride
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