Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 213 posts

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

#191

Post by kridsdale1 »

nradov wrote: post #180
soganess wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you even use number of characters? A better criteria is: what fraction of people does it stop from visiting the source (because they got the information they were looking for from the summary). Yes, yes that system has it's own problems, but it is more holistic that string.length().

Determining that fraction would require the search engine to run a series of A/B tests with varying preview lengths, and keep detailed records of test results. That seems like an unreasonable burden.

That’s exactly the kind of activity the google is doing every single day, thousands of them in parallel.

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

#192

Post by Dylan16807 »

randomdata wrote: post #189
acdha wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users are going to be opening links from emails, SMS/MMS/RCS, other apps, and sites which do care about their users' privacy so, yes, this would be a problem for many people.

It can only be a problem for the news agencies – and only if those users are a significant number to impact profitability. If those users don't matter, restricting their access doesn't matter. Who cares if someone who isn't helping your bottom line can't access the content you expect payment for? That’s the whole point of this – to keep out those who are not helping the news business. Now, each successful entrance in…

These are the people trying to visit your website because of very specific interest. You should want their views a lot, not try to keep them out!

The access token plan is workable, though still causes annoying linking problems.

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

#193

Post by Dylan16807 »

SECProto wrote: post #182
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.

> As a Canadian this is disappointing to me. I disagree with the law. As a Canadian, this is exciting to me. I agree strongly with the goals of the law (while holding nitpicks about the actual wording). I think the fact that Google came to an agreement shows that they don't have a fundamental issue with the law either (or they could've just withdrawn from our market, like Meta). It's a win for independent media in Ca…

> I think the fact that Google came to an agreement shows that they don't have a fundamental issue with the law either (or they could've just withdrawn from our market, like Meta).

That's a strange thing to conclude.

If the grocery store wanted to charge me 10 cents per visit for the air I breathe, I would have fundamental issues with that, but I'd still probably pay. And I'm far more motivated by emotion than a publicly traded company.

> I agree strongly with the goals of the law

I like the goals too. But I think the method is terrible, and that matters.

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

#194

Post by randomdata »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #190
randomdata wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can specify a link to have no referrer : ` link ` , among other ways. But you wouldn't do that if you want the link to resolve. If you don't want it to work, why would you go to all of the trouble of creating the link in the first place?

And block people that use a bookmark or share the link via chat programs? I think almost no sites would do that.

They would if the users affected do not impact their bottom line. After all, the whole point of this is to keep out users who are not paying their 'fair share' via Google/Meta by proxy.

But also, the technical solution to bookmarks and small-scale sharing between friends is quite obvious. You don't need referrers to solve that problem.

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

#195

Post by kridsdale1 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #101
drawkward wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Heaven forbid.

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

#196

Post by ipaddr »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #167
ipaddr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I welcome it for the opposite reason. The few powerful families that control the news cartel in Canada need less reach.

You "welcome" media control going from a "few families" to a single person?

When you mute corporate media all of these little voices get louder.

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

#197

Post by randomdata »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #192
randomdata wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can only be a problem for the news agencies – and only if those users are a significant number to impact profitability. If those users don't matter, restricting their access doesn't matter. Who cares if someone who isn't helping your bottom line can't access the content you expect payment for? That’s the whole point of this – to keep out those who are not helping the news business. Now, each successful entrance in…

These are the people trying to visit your website because of very specific interest. You should want their views a lot, not try to keep them out! The access token plan is workable, though still causes annoying linking problems.

> You should want their views a lot, not try to keep them out!

Views don't pay the bills. They only want viewers who are willing to pay to play (even if by proxy). C-18 ensures that payment is made, else user access is restricted by legal force. Which is the same outcome if it were done by technical force. They don't care about the restrictions on users who are eschewing payment in either case.

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

#198

Post by beej71 »

inlined wrote: post #144

Taken in the context of Google as a whole, this seems like pretty good evidence that Google does not consider itself to benefit from monopoly power like the DOJ claims. If Google did have a monopolistic advantage, they could refuse to pay the link tax. Clearly they're worried about losing market share to other search engines. [usual disclaimer: I work at Google but on nothing related to search or policy]

I thought they did it because they figured paying the tax was maximizing revenue. But I hadn't considered the antitrust advantages.

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

#199

Post by rossjudson »

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 .

I highly encourage you to read Google's statement on how it supports and handles news. The word "often" is load-bearing in your comment, and this provides the details.

https://blog.google/supportingnews/#overview

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

#200

Post by robocat »

wepple wrote: post #185
robocat wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basically everywhere Does one counter-example disprove the rule? I'm likely just naive and my eyes are not sufficiently opened - but I don't see a lot of obviously corrupt activity here in New Zealand. Corruption seems fairly endemic in most other countries I have visited. It isn't just a size thing because the problem seems to be worse in smaller countries and larger countries. 5 million population might be necess…

> Does one counter-example disprove the rule? No, NZ is an outlier. Regularly rated the least corrupt country on earth. “Basically everywhere” still holds. Also, whilst NZ may not have explicit corruption such as bribing police directly, the grandparent post suggesting that special interests affect govt is still true. Jacinda was supposed to be the one shining hope that many believed would bring in CGT and she admitt…

> CGT > wealthy property owners

CGT doesn't really help fix the problem of property prices appreciating. I like immigration, but I still recognize that 30% immigrants has a huge impact on property prices.

If you want to fix the problem of wealthy landowners then you need to look at a better solution than CGT.

Labour actually brought in some good policies that helped reduce inequality. And some crappy ones too (I saw the effects of their lending policies on friends trying to buy their first home).

My problems with CGT are:

1: it definitely screws up incentives for anyone to make NZ more wealthy as a nation. I know this personally: even with tax rates as they are, I've got fuck-all incentive to invest (in a business or otherwise). CGT actually screws the pooch because I would have more incentive to play the property Ponzi scheme because CGT dis-incentivises me to invest in business risks.

2: why bother starting a successful business if you just get penalized after you win the game. I'm in this position: I'm an average guy that helped found a company that brought millions into NZ and it seems you don't want me to keep the small percentage that is my fair reward (for the years of work I put in and the risks I personally took).

3: CGT seems like tall-poppy-syndrome. If you want to target intergenerational wealth then target that.

I have no love for National.

CGT is definitely no panacea to the problems caused by inequality.

Too many NZers want us to join the other failed states in the world where we can all be equally fucked.

I really don't think CGT has anything to do with corruption.

If you want to argue for CGT - argue why we should tax the billionaire Peter Jackson and why it is fair. An extrodinary success that has mostly benefited NZ (economic and non-economic wins) - obvious consumer surplus - low externalities - tax supported but NZ got paid back - clear export and local gains. He was born into a typical NZ family. "His property portfolio in 2018 was estimated at NZ$150 million" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson

Post reply on HN