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Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

cbc.ca

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

#61

Post by bryanlarsen »

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.

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

#62

Post by FirmwareBurner »

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.

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

#63

Post by Karawebnetwork »

One side effect of this whole ordeal that I hate is the fact that fake news sites and conspiracy theory sites that masquerade as "news sites" are not blocked. The result is that platforms are filled with bad content that some people find hard to differentiate from the truth.

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

#64

Post by SllX »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #46
o11c wrote: post #45

So apparently it is plausible to require, then.

Always was. Never believe the talking points and attempts at shaping the narrative. It’s “impossible” until it’s done.

It was never a matter of “could” only “should”.

It’s still a bad law, and Google shouldn’t have capitulated.

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

#65

Post by coldpie »

Analemma_ wrote: post #59
NorwegianDude wrote: post #55

I think search engines should be opt-in, not opt-out. Just linking to something is fine, but search engines also takes content and uses it to earn money. One example is the cards on Google where they extract content and shows it alongside ads. Nothing else I can think of works like this. Generally if you take the work of others without being allowed and use it to make money you'll end up in trouble. Now, for most peo…

This is such a bizarre way of thinking that's utterly antithetical to how the internet works. If you publish something publicly on the internet, people can see it and link to it. If you don't want that, gate access behind a paywall or login, or don't publish it all. Publishing it publicly and then demanding conditions on how it is accessed is kind of nonsensical.

Generally the problem is not the link itself, it's the headline and any included blurb/summary/image from the article. The problem being that users see & gain the content solely when viewed from the link aggregator, without ever actually visiting the originating website and participating in its monetization methods. A bare "http://..." URL probably would not have raised the same objections, but also no one would actually use a link aggregator that is just bare URLs.

Both sides have a point here. I'm not sure where I end up on the issue myself.

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

#67

Post by monkeynotes »

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.

I rarely support Meta, but in this case I do. I think it was a total dick move on the Canadian govt's side. Poorly understood their position, poorly understood the implications, poorly understood the problem space overall.

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

#68

Post by randomdata »

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.

Open Graph, which all the major news organization in Canada use, was created by Meta/Facebook to ensure that the news organizations have editorial control over what is "grabbed". If the news organizations want them to have less information, all they have to do is give less information.

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

#69

Post by bryanlarsen »

Georgelemental wrote: post #52

Who qualifies as a news organization under this law? Can any random declare themselves a "journalist"? Or do the benefits accrue only to Trusted Sources approved by Your Friend, The Government?

If I understand correctly, Google agreed to pay proportional to the number of human journalists an organization employs. If so, that's an awesome detail in this age of AI journalism.

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

#70

Post by wubrr »

randomdata wrote: post #58
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.

Especially when the news organization is free to deny the request referred by a linking party who has not offered the expected compensation. It is not clear why a new law is needed here when existing contract law already sufficiently covers the issue.

How would news organizations deny the request referred by a linking party? Are you talking about a technical denial - as in reject the HTTP request? I guess technically they can base something like this on HTTP referer header, but you can have links without referer info as well.
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