Google threatens to pull out of Australia over new "link tax" laws

[cretsiah]

i never said they committing tax fraud.......  re-investment??? dont hink they done that for a long time......

buy out potential competition defintely,

fake or bulldust inter country department internal copmany loans and payments? defintely singapore and ireleand come to mind 

 

dont think they have been innovative in a very long time...... in fact i think they gone and went stale

 

partly because they fear the competition they bought out

 

 

 

[StDragon]

Why don't the news site provide two different URLs. One for direct access that Google can't cache. And the other that Google can link too, but upon clicking on it, there are ads the viewer must watch and the revenue is paid directly to the news site.

 

I don't know how workable of a solution that is, but seems to keep everyone's hands clean.

[wanderingfool2]

6 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Meh, if it makes less people rely on Google, it's a good thing. It's the first step on killing this giant.

A law like this would hurt places like this more than Google.  Google would just do what it always does, and just to the minimum to avoid.

 

With that said, it does actually bother me a bit on how much the LTT forums actually quote so much of an article that it no longer requires reading the article...to me that actually more unfair to new outlet than what google is doing.

[Spotty]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

With that said, it does actually bother me a bit on how much the LTT forums actually quote so much of an article that it no longer requires reading the article...to me that actually more unfair to new outlet than what google is doing.

Copying entire news articles is discouraged in the Tech News guidelines.

 

Quote

Your thread should also include quotes from the cited source(s). While you shouldn't just copy the entire article, your quote should give the reader a summary of the article in a way that gives the key details, but also leaves room for them to read the full article on the linked website. Please use quote tags to show that you have copied this content from another site.

 

Having snippets from the source articles that gives a summary of the topic does greatly encourage & improve discussion. There is a sweet spot for Tech News posts on the forum between not including any quotes or your own thoughts just linking to the news article and copying the entire article.

 

 

As for this topic, I don't think the tiny snippet that Google shows for news articles will take away any traffic to the news site. The snippet Google shows is very insignificant, often less than a full sentence from the article. Sometimes it only shows the article title and an image from the article. It will give people an idea what the article is about but it will not replace the need for viewers to read that article.

 

This is what I see in Google News.

 

In Google Search results

 

And in Google app feed on mobile

 

 

Anyone interested in those topics would still click on the articles to read them. Media outlets are delusional if they think that Google is taking away traffic to their site. If it wasn't for Google I, and most other people, wouldn't find their articles in the first place. They're kicking the hand that feeds them in the balls.

 

Quote

Media companies, including News Corp Australia, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, have lobbied hard for the government to force tech firms to the negotiating table amid a long-term decline in advertising revenue.

What a surprise Murdoch has a history of ruining Australia's internet for his own interests.

 

[wamred]

So, Australia is going to make Google and others pay to have links on their websites? I am confused. 

[leadeater]

49 minutes ago, Spotty said:

What a surprise Murdoch has a history of ruining Australia's internet for his own interests.

Would probably be equally as accurate if you just took 'internet' out of that sentence too.

[Spotty]

19 minutes ago, wamred said:

So, Australia is going to make Google and others pay to have links on their websites? I am confused. 

The simple explanation is that if a news article shows up in google search results the media company is expecting Google to pay them. If you google search "Google pulling out of Australia" and Google shows search results linking to news articles, the media companies who published those news articles want to get paid for their 'content' showing on Google's website.

 

Quote

The code would see digital giants such as Google and Facebook pay local media companies for providing their content in search and sharing their content on social media.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-22/google-stop-search-engine-australia-news-media-code/13079912

 

If this goes ahead Google is looking to pull out of Australia, or alternatively remove any news sites from their search results so they don't need to pay them. The latter is something Google is already trialling in Australia by preventing 1% of Google users from seeing results for news websites in Google search results.

[wamred]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

The simple explanation is that if a news article shows up in google search results the media company is expecting Google to pay them. If you google search "Google pulling out of Australia" and Google shows search results linking to news articles, the media companies who published those news articles want to get paid for their 'content' showing on Google's website.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-22/google-stop-search-engine-australia-news-media-code/13079912

 

If this goes ahead Google is looking to pull out of Australia, or alternatively remove any news sites from their search results so they don't need to pay them. The latter is something Google is already trialling in Australia by preventing 1% of Google users from seeing results for news websites in Google search results.

Ah, that makes sense I guess. I mean, not the law but your explanation. 

 

And yeah, I am not sure this would do any good. I mean I'm sure the media companies would love it but that would be horrible for other companies. I don't know, I don't think it is a good precedent for other countries I know that. 

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Just delete everything related to Australia off their servers once the stupid law comes into effect. Make every search with 'australia' in it, return no result. Done.

You mean a bit like this?

 

 

Spoiler

How many will actually spot it 

 

[wamred]

16 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Just delete everything related to Australia off their servers once the stupid law comes into effect. Make every search with 'australia' in it, return no result. Done.

True. This is probably going to be what ends up happening. I wonder though, would this affect results displayed out of australia? For example, if I search for the australian website here in America does the law apply everywhere or just in Australia?

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

Copying entire news articles is discouraged in the Tech News guidelines.

Yea, but still a lot of the forum posts I see contain a significant part of an article/a few paragraphs which usually give enough of the meat of the article.  A great example being this one...the quote is straight up the first summary section that the article provides.

 

Not saying that I necessarily disagree with the LTT policies, just that it does bother me at how many times I see the posts which in essence quote enough to not incentivize people viewing the original article.  (Would actually be interesting to see the statistics)

[Bombastinator]

22 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Yes, please google, let's gooooo (home)! 

 

I hope they do it. 

 

I agree sounds stupid but a small price to pay to get rid of the tyranny that is google, I suppose.

Which is why they won’t.  The whole thing Google has is it’s ubiquity starves competition of air.  If Google pulls out it will leave a void which will get filled by something.  They either leave and let the pressure off, allowing something else to grow, or they don’t and the possibility of the practice spreading grows instead. There is no win for Google here.  It’s just which bit do they want to lose.

[RejZoR]

So, this is how Google will threaten countries to get it their way. Well, good riddance then Google.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

So, this is how Google will threaten countries to get it their way. Well, good riddance then Google.

I’m not sure they even think of it as a threat.  They’re thinking about it.  I’m quite sure they feel it is NOT a behavior they want to get around, and whether it does or not or they capitulate because the alternatives are worse or not, they are for sure going to lobby their ever livin butts off to make sure it doesn’t happen anywhere else. Companies have been successful with this sort of thing before.  Walmart successfully suppressed unions in Canada with this method.   The situation is different here though.  Walmart never offered a unique service. Space competition was not made possible solely by them ignoring a market.

Edited January 23, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Rheostat.]

The Australian news media companies have realised that there medium through which they show there news media is dying due to free online news sources, since nobody uses newspapers anymore, and watching very little TV for news. So they are poking a stick at Google to try to disrupe on how moden free news is deiverd, and try a buck of it. It's just plain greed from a dying industry, that is replaced by the internet. 

 

[Lurick]

6 hours ago, RejZoR said:

So, this is how Google will threaten countries to get it their way. Well, good riddance then Google.

So I can demand money from Google if my business is suffering because they are giving me free traffic too and I somehow am entitled to money from them because reasons?

[RejZoR]

Just now, Lurick said:

So I can demand money from Google if my business is suffering because they are giving me free traffic too and I somehow am entitled to money from them because reasons?

I'm not commenting on link tax, I'm commenting on approach how they're dealing with it. They are trying to rely on their global size to extort anyone into anything. Oh, you won't go our way, fine, then we're dumping your country. And you don't want to piss off whiny users who can't use anything else but Google and Android aye?

[Heliian]

Google is overstating their importance and making threats to get what they want.  Too pig to fail. 

 

Someone will immediately fill the void if needed.

[divito]

Not sure people are realizing how much traffic comes from Google. 

[TargetDron3]

So Google is getting mad that they make insane profit off of others and get upset when the people they are making a profit on wake up and realize how Google is screwing them over.

 

France passed a similar law over Google using snippets from news sites.  Google negotiated and agreed to that law in France.  

 

Google by including snippets IS preventing news sites from revenue due to lost add views.  But Google still gets to make money on their own ads.

 

I get a kick out of people that think the internet is or should be free.  If it was free it would collapse. It costs a lot of money to run "the internet". I think people are finally waking up to the realization that it's "free" because your data and surfing habits are the actual product being sold without you knowing it to fund most of it. 

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, TargetDron3 said:

So Google is getting mad that they make insane profit off of others and get upset when the people they are making a profit on wake up and realize how Google is screwing them over.

 

France passed a similar law over Google using snippets from news sites.  Google negotiated and agreed to that law in France.  

 

Google by including snippets IS preventing news sites from revenue due to lost add views.  But Google still gets to make money on their own ads.

 

I get a kick out of people that think the internet is or should be free.  If it was free it would collapse. It costs a lot of money to run "the internet". I think people are finally waking up to the realization that it's "free" because your data and surfing habits are the actual product being sold without you knowing it to fund most of it. 

A snippet is not the entire news article, a snippet is a summary. If people read a snippet and decide they don't want the story why should they be forced to go to the newspaper site? If they can't make news relevant or enticing they shouldn't magically be entitled to money. You also realize google isn't just saying "screw you we won't pay a dime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!" they have OTHER problems with this law because it would HURT small and independent news outlets, not the large Murdoch controlled ones.

[Lurick]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

I'm not commenting on link tax, I'm commenting on approach how they're dealing with it. They are trying to rely on their global size to extort anyone into anything. Oh, you won't go our way, fine, then we're dumping your country. And you don't want to piss off whiny users who can't use anything else but Google and Android aye?

Fair enough, yes they should be taking other avenues first before resorting to this but perhaps they've already done that and this is their final "offering" so to speak. I can't see into private conversations and exchanges though to know but I would hope/assume they made reasonable responses first which wouldn't hurt the small news orgs and would still give some monetary compensation to news outlets. I believe I've seen they did try to say "we'll pay some money" but the large orgs want access to Google's algorithms which would allow them to basically stamp out smaller organizations by abusing it.

[Jools G]

 " Google doesn't republish News/Nine content, it only prints an excerpt which leads to their paywalls. " 
this quote from an Australian journo "Michael West" sums it up.

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/internets-founder-us-officials-slap-down-news-and-nines-crusade-on-google/

from my own experience, when i click a link on FB news story from my local newspaper , it straight to a paywall.
If I the customer want to pay to read the story, then the money goes to the newspaper.

A less stupido idea for the Australian Gov would be looking into why both FB andGoogle had/have their head offices in Ireland (tax haven much ??) and just get FB/Google to pay normal company tax , not tax haven money shuffles tax

on a side note , it seems the Australian Government was prompted by Rupert Murdoch into doing this,
the same Rupert Murdoch who closed over 100 "not economical viable" regional Aust Newspaper (print versions)
which was within 2-4 week filled by many new  News-papers business.

 

[Bombastinator]

12 hours ago, Rheostat. said:

The Australian news media companies have realised that there medium through which they show there news media is dying due to free online news sources, since nobody uses newspapers anymore, and watching very little TV for news. So they are poking a stick at Google to try to disrupe on how moden free news is deiverd, and try a buck of it. It's just plain greed from a dying industry, that is replaced by the internet. 

 

Mmmm.  The problem is there is basically nothing that is free.  Or free and sustainable at any rate.  There has been such a big move of loss leader for market share stuff lately that people tend to forget that.  Google ram as a loss leader for many many years providing “free” stuff (that was never actually free) to drive out other businesses, then doing the standard “oh ive got to make money now, let’s start actually charging” 

 

there is no such thing as free news. Or free anything.  I’ve always loved that phrase “free as in beer” there is no such thing as actually free beer.  Never has been.  The phrase “free beer” was a standing joke for over a hundred years because it specifically  meant “not actually free”. For reference look up the history of bar snacks.

 

The “free” stuff you are reading is basically just stolen by others.  Somewhere there is still someone that does the reporting, and that person gets paid. So not free. 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I’ve always loved that phrase “free as in beer” there is no such thing as actually free beer.  Never has been.  The phrase “free beer” was a standing joke for over a hundred years because it specifically  meant “not actually free”. For reference look up the history of bar snacks.

Australia has already adopted the Beer Economy.