A small number of media owners control old media in Australia. There is a single national newspaper and most cities have a single daily. They are generally owned by the same person. That person flies in people at election time to aggressively campaign for the government of their choice. This only makes sense if there is some quid pro quo. I have no love for Facebook or Google but the Australian government does what it must to keep favour with media proprietors or risk toxic campaigns against them.
Response to Google open letter
271–280 of 330 posts
Re: Response to Google open letter
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google gets content and advertising revenue, journalists are not getting enough return for their work. It's not sustainable.
If they believe that Google should compensate them then they can already demand that Google stop linking their pages, and then bargain with Google the ordinary way. Why is it fair or necessary to add extra laws here?
There's no "demand" necessary. Just configuration.
Lots of interesting things on Robots meta tag:
https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_t...
Re: Response to Google open letter
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could do like the UK does with the BBC and fund it via ordinary taxes. It seems like a relatively simple solution.
Except for the Defund the BBC movement that's going on right now... I'm skeptical any government funded broadcaster is sustainable when it just turns into a propaganda outlet for the establishment.
That makes me, as a non-UK resident, rather sad. BBC programming (at least what makes it to North America) is really very good.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "if this law passes, we will stop serving these results" seems to be a reasonable reaction. If that's Google's reaction then they should say so outright, not this weasel wordy letter.
Being required to inform news media about changes to result ranking algorithms in advance and advise them on how to avoid being impacted also gives news media a unique ability to game search results and takes away Google’s ability to prevent them from gaming results. I would certainly expect this to also seriously degrade the quality of search results. Not only will results become a pile of worthless SEO spam by news…
I would just expect Google to use obsolete or different algorithms for search results for Australia.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#275> 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…
A recent case established that Australian news organisations are legally liable and may sued for defamatory comments posted against their stories on social media platforms
Re: Response to Google open letter
#276To fully understand this, it would be a good idea to understand the degree of influence that the Murdoch media has on the Australian landscape.
Murdoch media owns the vast majority of newspapers across Australia and is also more or less the only cable TV provider in Australia.
A good highlight of the power the Murdoch press has over Australia would be to look at the fact that the vast majority of journalists who work in the Canberra press gallery (parliamentary journalists), work for The Australian or other Murdoch entities, and have such a stranglehold on political journalism that it is a commonly accepted truth in Australian journalism that "if you want to know tomorrows news, read The Australian today."
The real kicker is that the Murdoch presses political biases are not subtle or secret, they are about as overt and blatant as you can possibly get with The Australian frequently running full front-page articles trashing one political party (Labor, the "left" leaning party) and heaping praise on the other (Liberal/National, the "right" leaning party).
With all of that context, the bill suddenly takes on a slightly more sinister tone when you realise that it is more or less designed to benefit one man and his media empire.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#277This is a very disappointing response from the ACCC. It seems to be extremely misleading in its own right. > Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services Google did not state this. The ACCC - the supposed detached "fair" regulator, in charge of creating this code, just made something up to suit their own ends. > Google will not be required to share any additional user data with A…
>Google did not state this. The ACCC - the supposed detached "fair" regulator, in charge of creating this code, just made something up to suit their own ends. From Google's open letter: `A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you…
> I can't find where it says this in the document you linked. I can find pieces of it
What I have done is taken 52M 2(e) and replaced the reference within it to 2(a) with the actual text from 2(a) so that the whole context is clear. The elipses show where I inserted the cross reference. Absolutely nothing I cited was not in there and nothing was represented out of context, as best I could achieve.
I understand it's a bit confusing, but I felt it was less confusing than pasting 5 subsections all cross referencing each other.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 shadow…
You and the parent post both sum up my feelings better than I can. We Aussies are being used as meat in the grinder between two companies that are each pretty awful in their own ways. I struggle to feel bad for either of them, really. Probably the most depressing of all of this is how the ACCC - what has always been a very closely treasured and respected independent government body - has been used here as a pawn by t…
Yep, it is offensive that the ACCC would even contribute to this nonsensical "debate". There is not a shred of preserving Competition in the News Media and digital landscapes in Australia. There is certainly no way the ACCC has acted in the interest of the Consumer. This whole debacle serves a few financial and political interests and works against healthy debate, democracy and the population's interest.
Access to a variety of editorial positions in the media is not possible for the average Aussie. Newscorp control the opinions of the country and the electorate - a balanced view is not within the grasp of Australia anymore, regardless of how this legislation turns out.
Re: Response to Google open letter
#279I'm very curious how this law wouldn't violate various free trade deals Australia has struck. Surely a tax that explicitly names only foreign companies is the opposite of free trade? Sure, China has driven a truck through the whole concept of the WTO over decades and so I doubt anything will happen. Free trade deals are very much toothless, on the assumption that they are supposed to make sense on their own terms so…
Ha, Of course govt. can regulate. Do you know in India e-commerce like Amazon is pure marketplace platform only. i.e. Amazon can't sell their own private label products on Amazon.in
Also India govt. is also preparing regulations to ask for data.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/retai...
Re: Response to Google open letter
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's.. awful. A Murdoch bill, then. Do you know if bloggers etc can be compensated?
First Murdoch stopped most of Australia from receiving the fast fibre to the home that had just begun rollout. Instead we got lumped with using his rotting Foxtel coax cables for slow expensive unreliable broadband. Plus we spent $10 Billion extra for the current copper mashup, compared with the original fibre to the home rollout he blocked using Abbott the onion muncher. Now he pushes his parliamentary puppets to gr…
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