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Response to Google open letter

accc.gov.au

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Re: Response to Google open letter

#111

Post by nl »

RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #23
nl wrote: post #17

From the ACCC's own release: In addition, the platforms must give news media businesses clear information about the data they collect through users’ interactions with news on digital platforms; for example how long users spend on an article, how many articles they consume in a certain time period, and other information about user engagement with news content across digital platform services. [1] Sure sounds like they…

> Sure sounds like they have to collect and share user data to me. This seems to be aimed at AMP. News sources get any information that google collect about users reading the articles. Seems fair. Google could always not collect that information in the first place if they wanted to actually take the moral high ground. But of course they won't do that.

I doubt that. Don't forget it's FB that also has to pay.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#112

Post by stephen_g »

hkt wrote: post #12
_-___________-_ wrote: post #4

The misinformation seems to be in the ACCC letter, since the Google letter [0] doesn't claim that they'd have to charge for Google Search or Youtube. Not surprising that they would try to use the current mood regarding tech companies to defend the government's position though. [0] https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open...

The Google letter pretty clearly makes overtures about "threats" to their free services. "Nice free search you got there. Shame if something were to.. happen.. to it."

Well, that's up to them though. The context of the "shame if something were to happen to it" quote is about destroying/stealing the other person's property, or hurting them. That's quite different to stopping providing a service to them which is currently provided under no compulsion...

Google is trying to say that the law won't make providing a free service viable. Is that an over-exaggeration? Perhaps. But maybe not...

Re: Response to Google open letter

#113

Post by mattoxic »

jacquesm wrote: post #98

When Murdoch and Google duke it out using the Australian people as their human shield I find nothing to be happy about and plenty to be sad about. Both parties here are disingenuous about their stated positions, both are rather cynical in how the perform their negotiations. In the end the public, no matter what, will end up the loser because neither of these parties has their best interest at heart. Murdoch just want…

The Australian consumer has already lost. This whole country is an exercise in trussing up the public and making sure they pay the very most for the very least.

I've long given up on Australian journalism - at least in the main stream. Obviously the Murdoch papers are garbage, but the Age and SMH are almost (and becoming) as appalling. The ABC and SBS have been cowered to the extent that they jump at their own shadows and now _have_ to include cometary from utter fuckwits like Gerard Henderson or that vast twit Greg Sheridan lest they appear biased. It now seems that the ABC almost has to ask permission to publish a story. The Age was a great newspaper, now it's almost unreadable - apart form the NYTimes and Wapo stories they run.

Google are not the good guys. They are a rapacious monopoly that have their shareholders interest at heart, NOT the Google consumer. And in terms of "trusting them with our data" - like that's the very least we'd expect from a product that purports to do this - and they don't do this for free - WE pay for it.

Like cry me a river Google - like News Corp, they pay fuck all tax in Australia, and, just like Murdoch, are more than happy to take advertising from fake news and conspiracy pushers that does nothing but fatten their profits and damage society.

There is good media out there - Crikey, The Guardian, New Matilda, new Daily etc, but it isn't mainstream, one has to, dare I say, search for it.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#114

Post by stephen_g »

justsee wrote: post #107
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 isn't in the wrong here, and framing this as just an honest consumer-first regulator doing their job omits critical context to help people understand what's happening. The party in power federally is the Coalition, and they are deeply entwined, in a symbiotic relationship, with Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd: illustrated by endless editorial lines supportive of the Coalition in media across the country, revolving d…

The $30 million was just last time. They got another $10 million this year [1]. Despite the fact that 75% of Australia doesn't subscribe to Foxtel and that SBS would be a better venue for sports content anyway...

1. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/22/coali...

Re: Response to Google open letter

#115

Post by nl »

clouddrover wrote: post #56
nl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reading the defenses here in HN, I have become personally partial to conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here. What do you mean? It's a ridiculous, arbitrary money grab used to fund old the old media mates of politicians. See Mike Cannon Brooke's (as someone who most definitely isn't getting paid by Google) thread to see how insane the rules are: https://twitter.com/mcannonbrookes/…

It's about funding journalism. What's Mike Cannon-Brooke's solution for funding journalism?

It's about funding media organisations.

There's nothing in the terms that means the money goes to hiring journalists at all.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#116

Post by stephen_g »

nocturnial wrote: post #53

Let's put aside whether Google had justified concerns about this legalislation. What's more appriopriate? Having a company incite the people in a foreign country to change laws or do it using diplomacy using experts in your state departement? We are only talking about allied countries to the US because google doesn't do this with, for example, china, russia, north korea, etc... I'm NOT advocating they should do this…

Problem is, once you get to a certain size, it's almost impossible to just "stay out of the politics" - because other companies won't stay out of it. The whole reason this bill exists is because another American multinational company that pays no tax in Australia and owns 70% of the readership of Australian news media is very effective in its politics. And they didn't do it by telling the public to ask for it - they have close ties with politicians, they give favourable coverage, they take all the Government's leaks and publish anonymously, they will minimise stories the Government doesn't want published...

Re: Response to Google open letter

#117

Post by microcolonel »

hkt wrote: post #54
pwc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be eligible for the scheme, the proposed bill requires annual revenues of at least[0] $150,000 (amongst other things), so I imagine it would exclude most independent-journalist-running-a-blog situations [0] see section 52G of the draft bill - https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m...

Wow, that's vile. So clearly about incumbent media power rather than promoting diversity. I wonder if eg wordpress, or ghost, would be able to create a situation for their hosted blogs in which authors were paid for their content by virtue of the organisation itself having the minimum level of revenue.

> I wonder if eg wordpress, or ghost, would be able to create a situation for their hosted blogs in which authors were paid for their content by virtue of the organisation itself having the minimum level of revenue.

That would open up a whole other can of worms in terms of liability.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#118

Post by harryf »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #36
gundmc wrote: post #6

> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so. > Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so. I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter. They didn't mention charging for services at all. They said "the free ser…

Somehow everyone misses this little gem in the draft bill [0]: > 52S.(1).(a) ensure that the registered news business corporation is provided with flexible content moderation tools that allow the registered news business corporation to remove or filter comments on the registered news business covered news content that: > . . (i) are made using the digital platform service;and > . . (ii) are made on a part of the digi…

> In another section the draft legislation requires Facebook / Google to notify the news organisation of changes to their page rank / feed algorithm, and also provide advice on how to mitigate the effects of those changes.

Interesting.

On the one hand working in software the idea of having communicate changes to an algorithm like this to 3rd parties gives me nightmares, and opens the door to regulation of the algorithms design.

On the other hand, given Facebook and Google's monopoly positions, why not? They're able to make of break businesses overnight by changing the stream of traffic, and there's basically no real competitors. Perhaps a weak analogy but if your local government was building a motorway that would bypass your town high street, effectively wiping out 90%+ of customers to your local shop, they would inform you months or years ahead so you have at least a chance to change your business strategy or close shop.

Re: Response to Google open letter

#120

Post by corty »

borland wrote: post #51
rsa25519 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter. Agreed. And because this ACCC response doesn't link to the letter, I think these rebuttals to non-existent claims are deceptively misleading

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.
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