The way Aussies search every day on Google is at risk from new regulation

[GeeKayK]

 

Summary

 New Laws in Australia have forced Google to change the way Google and YouTube work, including the possibility of handing user data over to big news businesses.

 

Quotes

Quote

"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 use at risk in Australia."

 

My thoughts

Google has gone out and highlighted the terms "search", "at risk", and "hurting" which shows how Google, and the I personally feel about this. This will have a massive negative impact on how the government, and other organisations can control what we consume and have access to.

 

Sources

 https://about.google/

 https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=hpp&utm_campaign=callout-p2

 https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-media-bargaining-code

 https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/josh-frydenberg-2018/media-releases/accc-mandatory-code-conduct-govern-commercial

 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fbusiness%2Ftechnology%2Fgoogle-says-draft-accc-news-code-will-hurt-search-youtube-functions%2Fnews-story%2Fc6d1a09986b550d416fb48ee4495b153&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium

[ACEHACK]

honestly google should just give them a big middle finger and say we are out. in less than a month they would crawl back and beg google to come back.

[Radium_Angel]

¿ʇuǝɯɯoɔ oʇ ʇuɐʍ ǝɹǝɥ sǝᴉssn∀ ʎu∀

[Orangeator]

This is a really bad idea. Hope Google just pulls out if they do this. Force the Australian government to eat crow. 

[ACEHACK]

Just now, lexusgamer05 said:

and isn't Australia trying to ban tik tok for mishandling user data...

oh you mean we dont get the share of a pie of user data so we will ban it. remember this the same country that has laws against encryption. 

https://www.zdnet.com/article/australia-now-has-encryption-busting-laws-as-labor-capitulates/

 

 

[Salv8 (sam)]

10 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

¿ʇuǝɯɯoɔ oʇ ʇuɐʍ ǝɹǝɥ sǝᴉssn∀ ʎu∀

*oƃʞɔnpʞɔnp uᴉ sɥƃnɐl*

[Vishera]

Can't Google just quit Australia?,Australians can use Google.com instead of Google.com.au

[GeeKayK]

7 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Can't Google just quit Australia?,Australians can use Google.com instead of Google.com.au

Honestly, i've never gone to google.com.au, always google.com, then again it probably gets forwarded to /au or .au. Even so, it just comes up at the bottom saying "Australia". I don't see a clear difference between the two anyway...

[TetraSky]

I find it strange how countries can somehow dictate how a company does business with their own products.

Like how they dislike Google for having a monopoly on searches... Even though there's plenty of competitors... they just suck. It's not Google's fault if Yahoo, Bing and whichever craptastic search engine out there suck donkey balls compared to Google Search. They aren't forcing anyone to use their search platform either... It's not even the default search engine of most browsers these days (other than chrome).

 

To me, this is just more government overreach, trying to get something out of Google because they don't even want to try and compete.

 

(Also, none of the links work, OP)

[GeeKayK]

Some extra information from the proposed law, the "News media bargaining code" can be seen here directly on the ACCC's site: https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-media-bargaining-code

[it_dont_work]

Au side this would mean google would need to operate more of their own infrastructure in Australia, and most likely pay tax. 

 

Otherwise the way this looks is that a lot of data google uses to commercialize its business would be transparent. I doubt how much would actually be enforceable, but we have a rather strong consumer protection, which has always irritated US companies.

 

Besides paywalled articles or murdoch media rehashing info from a letter, theres little to any real substance in these news reports.

 

While I'll look through the parliamentary documents eventually, this looks mostly just like its going to hit sensitive data google makes money from.   

[GeeKayK]

1 minute ago, TetraSky said:

(Also, none of the links work, OP)

Lmao, oops, they all seem to be working for me though...

I'll redo them here and on the original post:

https://about.google/

https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/

https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-media-bargaining-code

 

[Vishera]

20 minutes ago, GeeKayK said:

https://about.google/

https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/

Both links redirect me because of my IP,

Working links:

First link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R6gJeYdzHhoJ:https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es

Second link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nebjTKsl_IAJ:https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es

[Arika]

Hey Murdoch, can you fuck off? 

[it_dont_work]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

Hey Murdoch, can you fuck off? 

He'll either die or pull a Mr House. 

[mr moose]

SO has anyone actually read it uyet or are we just assuming its bad?

 

I have had a very quick glance at the draft legislation,  so far it seems all they are doing is making it illegal to pick and choose what news is presented when people search digital content.  I.E If I search Chinese south sea in google,  google must display the news according to relevancy not according to which articles they want to promote.   This will attempt to stop facebook sponsoring specific organizations from seeding on specific news content within news feeds. 

 

If that's all it does then why are people complaining, we should be after more generic search results and less policy driven results.

 

Quote

52WDigital platform service to be supplied on a non-discriminatory 2bas is in relation to registered news businesses’ news 3conte nt4The responsible digital platform corporation for a digital platform 5servicemust ensure that the supply of the digital platform service6 does not, in relation to crawling, indexing, ranking, displaying or 7 presenting registered news businesses’ news content:8(a)discriminate between registered news businesses, in relation 9to the application of this Part; or10(b)discriminate between registered news businesses and news 11businessesthat are not registered news businesses, in relation 12to the application of this Part.

 

Google is not allowed to put specific news business ahead of others in public search results (same with facebook)

 

I'll get back to people when I have read more in depth.  It is quite large.  But once again it seems google is misrepresenting the reality of the situation.

 

 

[ACEHACK]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

SO has anyone actually read it uyet or are we just assuming its bad?

 

I have had a very quick glance at the draft legislation,  so far it seems all they are doing is making it illegal to pick and choose what news is presented when people search digital content.  I.E If I search Chinese south sea in google,  google must display the news according to relevancy not according to which articles they want to promote.   This will attempt to stop facebook sponsoring specific organizations from seeding on specific news content within news feeds. 

 

If that's all it does then why are people complaining, we should be after more generic search results and less policy driven results.

 

 

Google is not allowed to put specific news business ahead of others in public search results (same with facebook)

 

I'll get back to people when I have read more in depth.  It is quite large.  But once again it seems google is misrepresenting the reality of the situation.

 

 

ie controlling the news, ie copying chinese government.

[GeeKayK]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I'll get back to people when I have read more in depth.  It is quite large.  But once again it seems google is misrepresenting the reality of the situation.

 

Thanks for that! Yea I read the Google release, and all I felt and saw was negative. I also did go through the ACCC site regarding the code, (didn't look into it deeply), but I did see some questionable stuff, but I would really like to know what else you find. 

 

Please share your findings with us!

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, ACEHACK said:

ie controlling the news, ie copying chinese government.

What do you mea?  it seems the law is preventing the news from being controlled.  It does not appear force news companies to not say stuff, or to say only certain stuff.  It is saying when news is presented on a digital platform (e.g facebook or google search) that platform must not discriminate between sources.  I.E google are not allowed to filter out fox news or cnn or supermarket rags, it must present all news equally according to search criteria.

 

Why is that a bad thing?

 

 

[Combat_Killer]

3 hours ago, GeeKayK said:

 

Summary

 New Laws in Australia have forced Google to change the way Google and YouTube work, including the possibility of handing user data over to big news businesses.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

Google has gone out and highlighted the terms "search", "at risk", and "hurting" which shows how Google, and the I personally feel about this. This will have a massive negative impact on how the government, and other organisations can control what we consume and have access to.

 

Sources

 https://about.google/

 https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=hpp&utm_campaign=callout-p2

 https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-media-bargaining-code

 https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/josh-frydenberg-2018/media-releases/accc-mandatory-code-conduct-govern-commercial

 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fbusiness%2Ftechnology%2Fgoogle-says-draft-accc-news-code-will-hurt-search-youtube-functions%2Fnews-story%2Fc6d1a09986b550d416fb48ee4495b153&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium

 

Here is some of the "OFFICIAL" pages...

https://www.accc.gov.au/speech/the-acccs-digital-platforms-inquiry-and-the-need-for-competition-consumer-protection-and-regulatory-responses

 

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/taking-a-broad-approach-to-digital-platforms-issues

It turns out if you read this info that its not just news media, there are other things too, like google misleading and lieing to its userbase etc...
Something sounds fishy here, google links newspapers articles and not the actual source from the ACCC website and when you actually read the full report, the news media is like 1 part out of many parts/topics that Google and Facebook are in trouble for, not just the news media topic.

[GeeKayK]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Why is that a bad thing?

I think this line, in the Open Letter, is what is concerning...

Quote

"The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of businesses - news media businesses - over everyone else who has a website, YouTube channel or small business."

What this tells me is that this may create equality between "news", but not equality between "news" and "youtube videos", or other forms of contact.

 

e.g. someone may google "tiktok news", and it will only boost/advertise/show news articles, and youtube videos, or websites that may relate to that search will be more hidden, less accessible.

 

but I also think Google's hiding something lmao...

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, GeeKayK said:

 

 

 

Please share your findings with us!

will do,

 

 

It seems there is an arbitration mandated that a news business can take a digital platform to if they believe the digital platform should pay remuneration for digital content.  I'm  a bit fuzzy on how that actually works, but the feeling I am getting is that this is a bit like the article 11 in the EU, only any bargaining has to go through independent arbitration. 

 

I haven't read anything where the government gets to control anything though. I n fact it seems the worst I have read is that public comments have to be able to be turned of or controlled by the content creator, meaning facebook might be in a bit of poo. The whole thing reads like it is giving power to the news businesses rather than allowing social media to have any control.   Interesting times

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, GeeKayK said:

I think this line, in the Open Letter, is what is concerning...

What this tells me is that this may create equality between "news", but not equality between "news" and "youtube videos", or other forms of contact.

 

e.g. someone may google "tiktok news", and it will only boost/advertise/show news articles, and youtube videos, or websites that may relate to that search will be more hidden, less accessible.

 

but I also think Google's hiding something lmao...

 

Two things,

1. google is hiding something,  our data

2. the paragraph I just linked before explicitly outlaws discriminating between news businesses. which makes googles claim an outright lie.

 

This is the draft I am reading:

 

https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure Draft Bill - TREASURY LAWS AMENDENT (NEWS MEDIA AND DIGITAL PLATFORMS MANDATORY BARGAINING CODE) BILL 2020.pdf

 

[GeeKayK]

Google's taking this pretty far, they seem serious... there's warnings and alerts everywhere...

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, GeeKayK said:

Google's taking this pretty far, they seem serious... there's warnings and alerts everywhere...

 

 

I guess just like with article 11 in the EU they stand to loose content. 

 

 

Also this is an interesting part:

 

Quote

The final offers cannot be more than 30 pages in length.1(5)The panel must accept one of the final offers unless the panel 2considers that each final offer is not in the public interest because it 3is highly likely to result in serious detriment to:4(a)the provision of covered news content in Australia; or5(b)Australian consumers.

 

It turns out the mediation or independent arbitrator cannot accept a final offer/resolution if it is highly likely to result in news being censored/distorted etc or if it is just not in the best interests of Australian consumers.

 

Personally this pleases me that it stipulates any outcome is not allowed to adversely effect consumers.