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

[GeeKayK]

8 minutes ago, mr moose said:

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.

I guess that's probably why they're going around alerting everyone so that they can say that the code is not in public interest, because they've essentially riled us up against the ACCC.

[RejZoR]

Because handing all your life to Google is not bad enough, now they want to hand all that data to some random news business too. Australia, you're drunk, go home.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

5 hours ago, ACEHACK said:

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.

I mean, didn't they try that China? 

[mr moose]

13 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Because handing all your life to Google is not bad enough, now they want to hand all that data to some random news business too. Australia, you're drunk, go home.

What data?  you mean the data that pertains only to that business and the data that that business and google are strictly banned from using for any other purpose other than determining if they are owed any remuneration for the content that was served?

 

Not sure why people post when they clearly have no idea what they are posting about.   Businesses cannot just order google to hand over any data, it has to be specific to the news content in question and it cannot infringe trade secrets.  Basically if google use a news piece then the creator oft hat piece can request in writing from google how much money they made from that piece and how many people it reached, etc.  This data request is just part of a much larger bargaining agreement that is overseen by an independent 3rd party that has to be agreed upon by both parties. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mihle]

Google shift this to seem much worse for the user base than it actually is, the same way they did the EU article 11.

They bend things to try to weaponize their user base against it because it hurts them financially.

[Sauron]

3 hours 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.

 

I was about to say, it would be nice to get some source on this that isn't Google, a paywalled article or the original legislature draft which nobody has the time to read through... on the surface of it this sounds like it wouldn't be a problem if Google weren't engaging in anticompetitive practices and data hoarding in the first place, meaning sites like DuckDuckGo would probably be unaffected, but since there's no proper summary of what the law actually does I can't be sure...

[mr moose]

11 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I was about to say, it would be nice to get some source on this that isn't Google, a paywalled article or the original legislature draft which nobody has the time to read through... on the surface of it this sounds like it wouldn't be a problem if Google weren't engaging in anticompetitive practices and data hoarding in the first place, meaning sites like DuckDuckGo would probably be unaffected, but since there's no proper summary of what the law actually does I can't be sure...

I've spent a bit of time reading through it, and to be honest I'm struggling to find a point to it.  All it seems to do on the surface is give large media companies more bargaining power in regard to what google can do with their search results and using their content.

 

To throw a few wild thoughts out there:

 

1. it could be easier to do it this way than risk messing with copyright laws (doing that can have very adverse effects in any direction).

2. It might be solely to give large companies the ability to prevent their news being used politically in a social engineered way.

3. it might solely be about laying the foundation to tackle everything digital.  Especially when it comes to news and social media we are heading in a generally unpleasant direction.

 

Please no one quote these unless you are going to add to it constructively, these aren't hard conclusions or interpretations, they are merely machinations of a complex and very large bill.

[GeeKayK]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

Please no one quote these unless you are going to add to it constructively, these aren't hard conclusions or interpretations, they are merely machinations of a complex and very large bill.

I honestly agree with everything you've said.

 

I believe Google has blown this way out of proportion and want to convince us this is bad so they can stop this from happening for Google's own benefit. 

 

Just like @Mihle has said...

3 hours ago, Mihle said:

They bend things to try to weponize their user base against it because it hurts them financially.

They're riling us up to go against this, which in turn they will use as an excuse to get out of this bill/code, which honestly doesn't seem as bad, if any bad at all, as it has been portrayed.

 

Oh well.

[Vishera]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

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

I have a law like that in my country.

It targets services like Google News that capitalize on news but don't pay news agencies a dime,such services exploit news agencies and the purpose of that law is to end it.

But in Australia the law seems to cover more than what is covered in my country,In my country search results are not included in that law but it's included in Australia.

[leadeater]

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

But once again it seems google is misrepresenting the reality of the situation

No, the extremely nice and always ethical Google not protecting their business interests, I'm shocked.

 

I'm sure if it can be bad for Google they will find a way to make it look bad, while the law also could be that's basically a non factor for Google. It's not good for us so kill it.

 

Why are we taking Google's word about this?

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

No, the extremely nice and always ethical Google not protecting their business interests, I'm shocked.

 

I'm sure if it can be bad for Google they will find a way to make it look bad, while the law also could be that's basically a non factor for Google. It's not good for us so kill it.

 

Why are we taking Google's word about this?

They exploit news agencies,capitalizing on their articles (Google News is an excellent example) and they don't see a dime.

[Bombastinator]

As an American I removed google as an option on all of my browsers years ago.  There was a time when I used scroogle which was a filter that used the google engine but removed mining metadata.  It died though. 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Google Search has been getting worse and worse as they manually craft search results to ban whatever they dislike, etc. I even have their "Power Searching with Google" certificate and a ton of stuff refuses to show up even though I may have a copy of said stuff and a direct link to it (usually looking for old news).

Using your search results to influence your public is completely evil, and they admitted on doing that. I'm using DuckDuckGo, but a ton of people gets influenced by that kind of garbage.

Well it sort of is.  Google search is fantastically profitable despite being “free” because they charge data rather than money, so they turn the data into money, and put some of that money into search engine research.  The result is unsurprisingly a better search engine, because they suck more data and therefor make more money.

[GeeKayK]

You've got to be kidding me. Even here now? WHY...

 

[Teddy07]

It is basically modern day highway robbery

[Trik'Stari]

16 hours ago, mr moose said:

The whole thing reads like it is giving power to the news businesses rather than allowing social media to have any control.   Interesting times

Neither of those two entities should have any form of power to control the flow of information.

 

We in the western nations (I think AUS is considered a "western" country? Not sure.) really need to get a handle on the internet. Freedom of speech and transparency should be forced down the throat of governments and corporations alike.

 

We should make them choke on it. No form of speech should be censored unless it is an already accepted exception to that rule. That being harassment (which occurs over time), incitements to riot/panic/violence, threats, etc.

[spartaman64]

10 hours ago, Vishera said:

I have a law like that in my country.

It targets services like Google News that capitalize on news but don't pay news agencies a dime,such services exploit news agencies and the purpose of that law is to end it.

But in Australia the law seems to cover more than what is covered in my country,In my country search results are not included in that law but it's included in Australia.

google is essentially providing free advertisement to the news agencies and directing more people to their webpage so why would google pay the news companies for that

10 hours ago, GeeKayK said:

I honestly agree with everything you've said.

 

I believe Google has blown this way out of proportion and want to convince us this is bad so they can stop this from happening for Google's own benefit. 

 

Just like @Mihle has said...

They're riling us up to go against this, which in turn they will use as an excuse to get out of this bill/code, which honestly doesn't seem as bad, if any bad at all, as it has been portrayed.

 

Oh well.

yep im fine with australian news sites being removed from google search i dont read them anyways

[spartaman64]

2 minutes ago, Caroline said:

you guys are still using google?

i sometimes use bing for a while after a fresh install but inevitably bing always fails me usually within like a week and i switch to google

[GeeKayK]

2 minutes ago, Caroline said:

you guys are still using google?

That was condescending

 

yea, im just a basic bish

[mr moose]

27 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Neither of those two entities should have any form of power to control the flow of information.

 

We in the western nations (I think AUS is considered a "western" country? Not sure.) really need to get a handle on the internet. Freedom of speech and transparency should be forced down the throat of governments and corporations alike.

 

We should make them choke on it. No form of speech should be censored unless it is an already accepted exception to that rule. That being harassment (which occurs over time), incitements to riot/panic/violence, threats, etc.

 

I don't think this effects censorship within a news agencies structure.  In other words it does not stop a particular paper or news website from be a left leaning or right leaning news agency (they can be just as free with their speech as they ever were).   It does however prevent google from promoting or unfairly representing one agency over another in search results to Australian consumers. 

 

I would say if what I have read is accurate, this bill will strengthen freedom of speech.

[Vishera]

23 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

google is essentially providing free advertisement to the news agencies and directing more people to their webpage so why would google pay the news companies for that

 

With that mindset Google can do whatever they want with any content they are indexing...

The problem is that Google are using the news articles without permission,profit from it and doesn't pay a dime to the news agency.

So it seems fair that Google will have to pay if the news agency ask them for pay in order to use their articles.

[Trik'Stari]

17 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

I don't think this effects censorship within a news agencies structure.  In other words it does not stop a particular paper or news website from be a left leaning or right leaning news agency (they can be just as free with their speech as they ever were).   It does however prevent google from promoting or unfairly representing one agency over another in search results to Australian consumers. 

 

I would say if what I have read is accurate, this bill will strengthen freedom of speech.

If that is all it does, I would agree with you. However knowing the way Google leans (heavily to the left, which is ironic) I won't be surprised if they find a way to completely undermine that.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

If that is all it does, I would agree with you. However knowing the way Google leans (heavily to the left, which is ironic) I won't be surprised if they find a way to completely undermine that.

Maybe that's why they are introducing the law then, maybe that's why google are so pissed with it.  Not only having to pay the original news outlet for the story but they also can't punish them with skewed search results.

 

 

[Vishera]

9 minutes ago, Vishera said:

The problem is that Google are using the news articles without permission,profit from it and doesn't pay a dime to the news agency.

So it seems fair that Google will have to pay if the news agency ask them for pay in order to use their articles.

27 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It does however prevent google from promoting or unfairly representing one agency over another in search results to Australian consumers. 

  So it seems like this law is about minimizing exploitation of news agencies on the web,and bringing more honesty and fairness to the media on the web.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Vishera said:

  

So it seems like this law is about minimizing exploitation of news agencies on the web,and bringing more honesty and fairness to the media on the web.

Seems like it, but as I said before, It is long and complicated and so far it is only a draft.  The other thing worth noting is that the ACCC proposed the bill (which is independent from the government) and did so with submissions from the industry.  So it's not something that has come directly from big business (in fact quite the opposite, the ACCC is often the nemesis of big business in Australia).