Can someone ELI5 the argument for the bill? My impression is it's something like "news websites provide content that creates engagement which drives ad revenue, and the news websites want a piece of that revenue." Is my understanding correct? Also, I can see how it applies for Facebook, how does it apply to Google?
Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
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Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#172Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd love some context for this.
Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…
For those unfamiliar, Pablo Rodriguez is the Minister of Canadian Heritage under whose auspices all these censorship and control schemes are being pushed forward.
Ironically, Pablo Rodriguez is the son of an Argentine Peronista (the far-left populism that cripples Argentina to this day). The family fled the country when the war broke out. Pablo was old enough to see first hands what happens when there is no free independent press, and now he's eagerly fostering those same conditions onto Canada.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or fighting a legal battle (which they will hopefully fight and win), or leaving the jurisdiction and then saying "good luck with that, let's find out how much of your companies' revenue we were driving".
If they just showed the title and the link - like they used to - they it would drive revenue. But because they show a synopsis of the news, people very often don't click the link.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#174Can someone ELI5 the argument for the bill? My impression is it's something like "news websites provide content that creates engagement which drives ad revenue, and the news websites want a piece of that revenue." Is my understanding correct? Also, I can see how it applies for Facebook, how does it apply to Google?
Not to argue in favour of the bill, but I think the idea is Google's whole business model relies on others for content, so a slice of that revenue should go to the content creators (even though the content creators gain from Google, and can generate their own ad revenues). The Liberal party is also trying to protect Canadian content (again, not to defend or advocate for this policy), and I'm sure this is part of it,…
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#175Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Social Media has every right to refuse to pay and refuse to redistribute. Unfortunately Brazil is trying to take that right away, too. Hopefully they fail at doing so.
What leverage do they have? Companies can always pull out of the country entirely.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#177The solution to this problem is for Google, Facebook and other web sites that link to news to limit links to web sites that agree that the free traffic they're receiving from extremely popular web sites is sufficient compensation for linking to them. In other words, block links to any web site that feels entitled to be paid for being linked to. There are plenty of web sites that will be happy to take the free traffic…
They cannot do that. The law forbids discriminating against any Canadian news business. If they link to news sites that don't demand payment but won't link to ones that want to be paid, it'd be viewed as retaliation. The only options are to accept the rigged negotiation process and pay all news business vastly inflated rates, or to link to none of them.
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#178Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. Sometimes taking the simple view is correct: It's a bad thing to prevent sites from linking to one another. It's a bad thing to interfere with the ability to access information on the Internet for reasons of nationalist politics.
> 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…
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#179Can someone ELI5 the argument for the bill? My impression is it's something like "news websites provide content that creates engagement which drives ad revenue, and the news websites want a piece of that revenue." Is my understanding correct? Also, I can see how it applies for Facebook, how does it apply to Google?
Not to argue in favour of the bill, but I think the idea is Google's whole business model relies on others for content, so a slice of that revenue should go to the content creators (even though the content creators gain from Google, and can generate their own ad revenues). The Liberal party is also trying to protect Canadian content (again, not to defend or advocate for this policy), and I'm sure this is part of it,…
Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law
#180If this is the primary concern, though, then wouldn't it make more sense to draft a law regulating content caching, rather than the pay-per-click approach? It seems like a law that said "Sites that serve any content which wasn't part of a 'you can cache me' section need to pay for that content" would address the concerns of both parties here.
This would solve the alleged issue that news organizations are bringing up, while also making it totally clear what the consequences are. If you don't want Google to be able to use your content within search results that's totally fine, but you can't then also be mad that they don't surface your content in search results.
Seems like letting news site determine what content Google can cache for its results, and then letting Google determine ranking based only on that data would be a completely reasonable compromise. As it stands now, though, Google is directly incentivized to just never surface these websites, which hurts everyone involved.