31–40 of 51 posts
This is absolutely ridiculous legislation, because it doesn't give Google the option of just removing all these news sources from search results if their asking price is too high. In effect, there's no choice but to pull the entirety of search out of Australia, or pay whatever arbitrary price the arbitration process comes up with. It's like forcing internationally-owned supermarkets to stock newspapers at a price det…
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Forcing the provider of a service to carry all local newspapers? Sounds a bit like net neutrality to me. If we see google news as a common carrier of sorts, forcing it to carry everything at fixed prices seems appropriate. Whether the price is too high, or whether one body or another should set the price, is something that can be negotiated.
Google already carry all local newspapers at a fixed rate. The Australian government just decided to increase the rate to a level Google argue they can't operate under and therefore would have to exit.
It's similar to Germany where, i.e. book prices are fixed, and every store must sell for the same price, whether they like it or not. Of course, they have a choice not to sell.
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Google already carry all local newspapers at a fixed rate. The Australian government just decided to increase the rate to a level Google argue they can't operate under and therefore would have to exit.
So let them exit then. It's not like Google has the right to set prices for themselves. It's similar to Germany where, i.e. book prices are fixed, and every store must sell for the same price, whether they like it or not. Of course, they have a choice not to sell.
I wonder whether Google might withdraw their service for a day or even just a few hours, to apply pressure on the government.
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Yeah I'm not a fan of the law either. Google's response was also irritating: plastering ads for their video (against the new law) on every search made from Australia.
You'd rather want Google search to just disappear someday?
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Contradictory logic pfft. Have you checked your families google app/news feed or whatever they are calling that thing these days. Its like Meghan Markle is the most important person in the world. I mean initially it was fun to rib my Dad about why he is getting so many Meghan Markle updates. But now I am just scared to even look at phones in the family, given the amount of addictive garbage that is being pumped into…
Royals have been a favourite topic in the news since long before search engines existed. The algo is just picking up on the same trends tabloids did. Tons of people want to read that stuff.
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News corp, headed Rupert Murdoch, owns a lot of media in Australia. Most of this media is abjectly shithouse but heavily consumed by people aged 60+. Murdoch wields undue political power because of this, which induces elected politicians to fawn over him. They gave him the order of Australia the other week for example, which seems nonsensical to many actual Australian citizens, to whom he appears to be a rich prick s…
'If I have to use a VPN to get decent search results because of this nonsense I will NOT be pleased.' Good news then because you can use Duck Duck Go and get reasonable results without being stalked around the internet or run the risk of your parents clicking a scam ad because 'it has 5 gold stars beneath it'.
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As somebody who dislikes both the established old media firms of Murdoch & Co, but despises the parasitic Tech surveillance capitalism even more, I welcome this (regressive) attitude. Europeans are fighting for similar reasons which is loss of control of their own media and a takeover by US propaganda and norms by companies who have failed to pay their taxes again and again. imo it doesn't matter that many of these l…
Re: takeover by US firms, note that while Murdoch was born Australian he gave up Australian in favor of US citizenship... precisely because it would have been illegal to own such a stake in US media firms as a non- or dual-citizen. We would also like the Murdoch media and/or tech giants to pay tax in Australia, yes, but neither do at the moment.