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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

#121

Post by drawkward »

ouEight12 wrote: post #102
drawkward wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

The free and open internet died long before this link tax.

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

#123

Post by mh8h »

olalonde wrote: post #81

Poilievre pledged to repeal Bill C-18 (the "link tax") and is leading in the polls, so there's that.

Well... now that Google is starting to pay, and I expect Meta to follow suit, I don't think he will have much to argue for repealing the law.

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

#124

Post by randomdata »

graeme wrote: post #115
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #53

I'm glad Canada stayed relatively firm on this. The prior art in Australia made this a no brainer.

Meta left news in Canada and isn't set to return - no news media can post to Meta platforms. Now media outlets have lost a good chunk of their organic business model and are reduced to begging. The government implemented a large media tax subsidy as a result of how much C-18 cost the media so far. And all pre-existing Meta and Google deals have been cancelled. This $100 million is all there is.

> no news media can post to Meta platforms

The local CTV outlet still does (not sure about their wider brand, I only look for local news). They just can't link back to CTV's website anymore.

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

#125

Post by oofta-boofta »

gspencley wrote: post #98

As a Canadian this is disappointing to me. I disagree with the law. Actually, disagree is too soft. I think it is absolutely ridiculous. By Google agreeing to pay even one penny, it removes a large incentive for our politicans and regulations to realize that this was ill-conceived and to come to their senses and repeal.

[dead]

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

#126

Post by Nextgrid »

gspencley wrote: post #109
tannhaeuser wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> makes news content [...] available

That sounds like a simple link wouldn't count?

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

#127

Post by [deleted] »

Nextgrid wrote: post #126
gspencley wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> makes news content [...] available That sounds like a simple link wouldn't count?

[deleted]

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

#128

Post by vivekd »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #62
granzymes wrote: post #57

Respect to Meta for having the courage to stand up to the media lobby in Canada and turn off news in response to this law. I'm happy that Google wrung concessions out of the government, but it would've been better for the open internet had they stuck to their guns and removed news links as well.

>Respect to Meta for having the courage to stand up to the media lobby in Canada I'm not sure what's going on in Canada for Meta to be seen as the "good guy". Feels like rooting for Hitler to defeat Stalin.

There's a huge portion of people here that really hate our government. I'm one of them. This whole law was a result of legacy media lobbying for that law, a lot of smaller Canadian media outlets and small content creators opposed it. Everything is like that here, the government is ruled by special interests.

Even this law, the government abused parliamentary process and the COVID situation to avoid having this law debated in parliament before it was passed. They don't care about democracy, they don't care about the rule of law, they don't care about anything, they just do what benefits them and their friends.

I hate Canada's politically connected elite, and honestly prefer facebook

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

#129

Post by Y_Y »

randomdata wrote: post #116
acdha wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The simplest option is to treat it as a rejection. Users aren't going to be dreaming up (choosing a recent article at random) URIs like /politics/federal/chiefs-of-ontario-says-trudeau-s-carbon-price-is-discriminatory-and-demand-a-review/article_9c995f63-1e26-56c6-9048-79781a9b649c.html in order to get there without some referring party. Negotiations between Google/Meta and the news organization when defining the ser…

And if somebody sends you the link in an IM? Or if the browser fakes a referral from the news sites landing page?

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

#130

Post by echelon »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #61
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.

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.

None of this is going to matter. In ~5 years everyone will be using AI summarizes and sharing this stuff with no chain of origination.

With the rise of rage and clickbait, that might be a really good thing to disincentivize many of the bad ways that media is produced and presented.

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