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Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

smh.com.au

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Re: Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

#11

Post by afavour »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #7

I'm not fully understanding the Australian media's issue with Google. Google shows links or a small snippet of news articles, a user may decide hey I want to read that and clicks the link and goes to the media outlets website to read more. This is driving traffic to media websites? If it wasn't for Google surfacing the content, unless the user was a daily reader of that specific media outlet that user would never of…

> Google shows links or a small snippet of news articles, a user may decide hey I want to read that and clicks the link and goes to the media outlets website to read more. This is driving traffic to media websites?

That is how it would work if Google presented simple search results, like they always have. But their snippets are different: they try to extract an answer to the users actual query. So if they’re doing their job correctly the user actually won’t visit the site, because they will have been given all they need by Google.

I’m undecided about whether this law is actually a good idea, but I can see the point. A contrived example: I want wonder “how much damage was caused by last week’s hurricane?”. A newspaper might have assigned a reporter to covering the hurricane, and they’d call up various local authorities that can estimate this kind of thing, then write an article containing that info. All salaried work that cost money. Along comes Google, grabs the relevant paragraph, and shows it on my search results page. No need for me to click, no money goes to the newspaper.

Re: Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

#14

Post by LIV2 »

verdverm wrote: post #10
tiew9Vii wrote: post #7

I'm not fully understanding the Australian media's issue with Google. Google shows links or a small snippet of news articles, a user may decide hey I want to read that and clicks the link and goes to the media outlets website to read more. This is driving traffic to media websites? If it wasn't for Google surfacing the content, unless the user was a daily reader of that specific media outlet that user would never of…

It is a bad precedent to allow governments the power to decide which speech should be heard.

The Australian government already has that power since we have no bill of rights and no free speech

Re: Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

#16

Post by Kim_Bruning »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #5

If Google threatening to leave can undo the law, than Google knows they can threaten it again and again, any time they don't get what they want. Stand firm, Australia. Let them leave. You'll be better off without these bullies in your country.

It's not a threat though. The article title is misleading. In fact the article body quotes the Google spokesperson as saying it's not a threat.

* ' Ms Silva described the ultimatum as a "worst case scenario", adding: "It's not a threat. It's a reality". '

Note the authors description as 'ultimatum', while the plain language of the quote is "it's not a threat".

I'm not the biggest Google fan these days; but from what I know how Google operates [1], I don't think it's a threat either. I think Google would genuinely have to stop providing search.

[1] Google -as a search engine company pushes traffic to your site, which you can choose to monetize or not as you see fit. On their side the company monetizes their search engine by means of advertising in this case. If you ask for the traffic AND both sides of the money, there's no profit left for the search engine provider anymore, and they will be forced to shut down (in that region).

Re: Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

#17

Post by robin21 »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #7

I'm not fully understanding the Australian media's issue with Google. Google shows links or a small snippet of news articles, a user may decide hey I want to read that and clicks the link and goes to the media outlets website to read more. This is driving traffic to media websites? If it wasn't for Google surfacing the content, unless the user was a daily reader of that specific media outlet that user would never of…

If every news outlet told google to remove their articles or pay them then google would have to weigh up the ad loss from people no longer searching for news on their platform and potentially moving to another search platform. This is what the free market offers. However Google's monopoly position makes this challenging.

There is also the regulatory route where the will of the people demand change.

In France such an agreement was just signed: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/google-inks-agreement-in-f...

I'm not clear on the specifics but it seems clear thst Google is on a PR campaign to avoid impact to their profits worldwide from such moves.

Re: Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

#18

Post by robin21 »

verdverm wrote: post #10
tiew9Vii wrote: post #7

I'm not fully understanding the Australian media's issue with Google. Google shows links or a small snippet of news articles, a user may decide hey I want to read that and clicks the link and goes to the media outlets website to read more. This is driving traffic to media websites? If it wasn't for Google surfacing the content, unless the user was a daily reader of that specific media outlet that user would never of…

It is a bad precedent to allow governments the power to decide which speech should be heard.

It's a great point. At present there is always the opportunity for another search engine to come along and take search traffic from google. Thinking in the time frame of 50 years I would guess that Google's monopoly will erode eventually. We shouldn't create precedents that could impact future competition.

Re: Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

#19

Post by Terretta »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #16
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #5

If Google threatening to leave can undo the law, than Google knows they can threaten it again and again, any time they don't get what they want. Stand firm, Australia. Let them leave. You'll be better off without these bullies in your country.

It's not a threat though. The article title is misleading. In fact the article body quotes the Google spokesperson as saying it's not a threat. * ' Ms Silva described the ultimatum as a "worst case scenario", adding: "It's not a threat. It's a reality". ' Note the authors description as 'ultimatum', while the plain language of the quote is "it's not a threat". I'm not the biggest Google fan these days; but from what…

“Kim_Bruning, if you keep posting here, mark my words, there will be consequences. That’s not a threat, that’s a reality.”

Any discomfort one may experience from that comment is misled, as the plain language clarified it’s not a threat.[1]

But more seriously, Google would not have to stop providing search.

For the most part, the code of conduct in question is regarding “content” while you’re talking about search engine results.

Google as a News Portal slurps content from publisher sites and you can get a gist of the news without leaving Google (see also Google’s AMP technology push which looked scarier at the time this dust up started).

Remember Google has sites such as https://news.google.com/, and remember how content creators and curators were not sure how upset to be over what Google did with Yelp reviews and the like. Using Google today, fewer and fewer searches return plain SERPs.

Certainly there are a couple sites in EU and elsewhere mad at having their search result links show up without getting paid for them, and for that, well, they should google robots.txt.

SERP snippets are one thing, structured content someone else spent money to bring together is another. For the most part, this is about usage of content.

1. Footnote: “Consequences of continuing to post here may include, but are not limited to, having additional postings posted.”

Re: Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law

#20

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Terretta wrote: post #19
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a threat though. The article title is misleading. In fact the article body quotes the Google spokesperson as saying it's not a threat. * ' Ms Silva described the ultimatum as a "worst case scenario", adding: "It's not a threat. It's a reality". ' Note the authors description as 'ultimatum', while the plain language of the quote is "it's not a threat". I'm not the biggest Google fan these days; but from what…

“Kim_Bruning, if you keep posting here, mark my words, there will be consequences. That’s not a threat, that’s a reality.” Any discomfort one may experience from that comment is misled, as the plain language clarified it’s not a threat.[1] But more seriously, Google would not have to stop providing search. For the most part, the code of conduct in question is regarding “content” while you’re talking about search engi…

My favorite one from my parents: "If you don't eat your dinner, you'll go straight to bed without dinner!"

I may agree with you on the not-SERPs part. In which case Google might simply decide to stop doing that.

However, it was my impression that the Australian law pretty much also forces Google to pay for SERPs though; at which point they're snookered, and my previous point applies.

(If I'm wrong about the law forcing SERPs payments, then I'd be wrong about google needing to withdraw, and I'll withdraw the point)

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