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Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

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Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#101

Post by cmrdporcupine »

drawkward wrote: post #96
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is amazing the web-illiterate/ignorant way this is being reported in Canada, too. Lots of mention of Google "posting" or "publishing" content, when all it's doing is linking to the publisher's own site. I'm no fan of Google these days, but I wish they had played hard ball on this. This is a total joke.

>when all it's doing is linking to the publisher's own site That's not true, however. It is also often including a summary and an image, which is certainly republishing or reposting the content. In no way is it "web-illiterate/ignorant" to refer to it as such, because it is more than just a link .

Google News is ridiculously spartan. It's very old school Google. A headline, a classification, and sometimes a thumbnail. No description or summary or text of any kind

Facebook, yeah, that's something else. One thing that is legitimately bad about that is the way the content can be posted on whatever wall and then a pile of unmoderated public comments put on it, that the publisher has no control over.

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#102

Post by ouEight12 »

drawkward wrote: post #75
brushfoot wrote: post #47

Even if you agree that Google should have to prop up Canadian news organizations—which I don't, but for the sake of argument—predicating that support specifically on hyperlinks seems like a terrible precedent to set. Any site of any size should be free to link wherever it wants, freely.

>Any site of any size should be free to link wherever it wants, freely. Maybe that was true in the days before big tech, venture capital and advertising monetized the internet, but the internet has been vastly changed by those three groups, and not always for the better. They certainly do make a bunch of money though!

So.. we should break a fundamental aspect of an 'open and free' internet by introducing a link tax, just because the horse and buggy people haven't taken the last 25 years to figure out how to sell automobiles by now?

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#103

Post by wharvle »

randomdata wrote: post #68
bryanlarsen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google/Meta do more than link, though. They also grab a hero image and an excerpt. Likely fair use, but definitely getting into the grey area. I don't know how the Canadian law is worded, but it would be much more acceptable to me if Google/Meta could get out of paying if they only linked and didn't excerpt images or text.

Open Graph, which all the major news organization in Canada use, was created by Meta/Facebook to ensure that the news organizations have editorial control over what is "grabbed". If the news organizations want them to have less information, all they have to do is give less information.

Devil’s advocate: “You can choose what to give us and we’ll display it… but if what you give us isn’t good enough, who knows what might happen to your links’ prominence on our site?” isn’t quite some fully-voluntary thing when Google’s the one saying that.

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#104

Post by acdha »

randomdata wrote: post #58
brushfoot wrote: post #47

Even if you agree that Google should have to prop up Canadian news organizations—which I don't, but for the sake of argument—predicating that support specifically on hyperlinks seems like a terrible precedent to set. Any site of any size should be free to link wherever it wants, freely.

Especially when the news organization is free to deny the request referred by a linking party who has not offered the expected compensation. It is not clear why a new law is needed here when existing contract law already sufficiently covers the issue.

What happens when they set a referrer policy no-referrer? I’m sure Google and Meta would say that’s to protect user privacy.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re...

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#106

Post by graeme »

bensecure wrote: post #10
KingLancelot wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries are now extorting American tech companies, that’s what’s really going on here.

If you're doing business in a country, naturally you need to deal with the regulatory environment of that country. Its surprising to see such explicit american chauvinism when discussing this issue.

I'm Canadian. It's obviously extortion. Unless you take the position that linking to someone on the internet harms them.

In the regular world, people pay for links. Google had to ban the practice of paying for links because links are so valuable. And people still do it.

It is nonsensical to argue that links are a cost. So, this law was an attempt at a shakedown.

And it didn't work very well. Meta walked, and this deal with google exempts it from the law if it pays $100 million. All existing deals with the media were cancelled too.

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#107

Post by Dylan16807 »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #89
brushfoot wrote: post #47

Even if you agree that Google should have to prop up Canadian news organizations—which I don't, but for the sake of argument—predicating that support specifically on hyperlinks seems like a terrible precedent to set. Any site of any size should be free to link wherever it wants, freely.

"Link tax" is clearly chosen in bad faith, like in other cases where that wording had been used. What's really happening is that Google Search shows previews of large parts of articles such that visitors don't go to origin sites to generate page impressions/ad playouts. Which is especially problematic since Google/Alphabet is either an ad provider on the skipped news site or its competitor.

I'm pretty sure I've seen multiple critiques that this specific law is in fact a link tax, and doesn't care if there are previews or not.

Is that wrong?

Sure, google currently has previews, and a law could be written to target previews, but I don't think this law targets previews.

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#108

Post by nradov »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #89
brushfoot wrote: post #47

Even if you agree that Google should have to prop up Canadian news organizations—which I don't, but for the sake of argument—predicating that support specifically on hyperlinks seems like a terrible precedent to set. Any site of any size should be free to link wherever it wants, freely.

"Link tax" is clearly chosen in bad faith, like in other cases where that wording had been used. What's really happening is that Google Search shows previews of large parts of articles such that visitors don't go to origin sites to generate page impressions/ad playouts. Which is especially problematic since Google/Alphabet is either an ad provider on the skipped news site or its competitor.

How many characters of preview would be reasonable? 50? 100?

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#109

Post by gspencley »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #89
brushfoot wrote: post #47

Even if you agree that Google should have to prop up Canadian news organizations—which I don't, but for the sake of argument—predicating that support specifically on hyperlinks seems like a terrible precedent to set. Any site of any size should be free to link wherever it wants, freely.

"Link tax" is clearly chosen in bad faith, like in other cases where that wording had been used. What's really happening is that Google Search shows previews of large parts of articles such that visitors don't go to origin sites to generate page impressions/ad playouts. Which is especially problematic since Google/Alphabet is either an ad provider on the skipped news site or its competitor.

This is a popular myth about the way the law works in Canada. The myth may be based on how the Australian version works, I wouldn't know. But here in Canada, this is the relevant text of the bill:

> digital news intermediary means an online communications platform, including a search engine or social media service, that is subject to the legislative authority of Parliament and that makes news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada

"Making available" includes just links. In other words, there is no qualifier in the bill what-so-ever that requires that previews and snippets be extracted and provided. A single link with no text or any other content whatever qualifies as "making available."

Here is the entire text of the bill: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-a...

Re: Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

#110

Post by Georgelemental »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #92
olalonde wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trusted Sources approved by Your Friend, The Government This. From the C-18 bill: Requires the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) to maintain a list of digital news intermediaries in respect of which the enactment applies.

It's not arbitrary. Any organization which meets fairly transparent requirements must be on the list.

> is either a member of a recognized journalistic association and follows the code of ethics of a recognized journalistic association or has its own code of ethics whose standards of professional conduct require adherence to the recognized processes and principles of the journalism profession, including fairness, independence and rigour in reporting news and handling sources; or

Doesn't sound transparent to me. What does "fairness" mean? "Independent" of whom? "Recognized" by whom?

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