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

[thechinchinsong]

2 hours ago, thundercats_nz said:

Good on the Aussies for at least raising the issue, at least they are willing to take a stand on things (right or wrong!)... bonus points for calling China out on their cr*p too!

I don't know if it's the Aussies themselves that actually want this issue addressed. Looks to me its more like Australian media corporations lobbying their government to legislate in their favor.

[mcgyvah]

3 hours ago, thundercats_nz said:

As you say it's a mix of news companies wanting a bigger slice of the pie

Actually I thinks it is them wanting google to pay for the pie instead of just eating it. It is designed to even the applecart ( full of metaphors today), which is quite hard because of companies like Google being allowed to own so much giving them an unfair advantage or ability to eliminate competitors. In this case its the news( information control) area (and controlling the news controls peoples ideas, even though we don't  like it , we seem to accept it ).

Before online news , Having competing news moguls has kept them (reasonably ) honest

This extends to everything Google is attempted to get (or frankly already has) a monopoly on. Lets face it, a monopoly isnt good for any consumers anywhere.

It is a governments job to promote fair competition. Historically one way governments do this by preventing takeovers ( i think fitbit is a US example?), but lets face it, Google has out run them and has too much power already.

The reason they ( Aus Gov) will apply this law to companies that they choose, is because they must, the law must apply to the company that may get the unfair market advantage. It cannot apply to all, as this will just let the big company keep its big advantage. However it may apply to the small company in the future if they get bigger and the conditions appy.

So since, Bing, for example, is nowhere near a google, it wont apply to them until they try to get too big, then it might apply.

 

There may be some disagreements on how they ( the Australian Government) are doing it, but its a pretty slippery eel and the proposed laws seem  is an attempt to promote fair competition and  any company that starts to get (or already has) a monopoly.

 

The very fact that Google threatened a government, really shows how big they think they are. France, Australia, it will become global. But lets face it. its the US that can stop it and what will they do? nothing cause Google already has too much money and power. and when China buys Google, and the US says no, Google will say... up yours,,, just like they are saying to Australia now... because apparently they have the power to determine Law, (something a lot on here seem to be supporting)  they may as well be the Government. Then when China owns Google.... walla! 1 world government....awesome.

But here' s the clincher, because we are controlled by the news, which they own. We wont care, we will just believe what they tell us or, if not,  they will just put an ad next to some news about some socks we have been Googling for and we will get distracted...

 

But seriously..back in the real world..

 

 Lets try and separate the 3 parties. 1 Google, 2 Aus Gov, 3 regular news moguls ( who own plenty elsewhere besides Australia) and in the past have been non online Googles them selves.

Agendas put simply:

• Google.... make money by owning and controlling everything
• news moguls... make money by owning and controlling everything ( or in this case try and stop their empires sliding to google)
• Australian Government (Hopefully their agenda)..  It is their job to ensure fair competition and to Make laws that promote this.

Anyway we can bitch all we want, but we have no say in this. I'm gonna spend my time on something more productive then posting here... next time GAdg  ..er Google... next time ( maniacal laugh as he leaves computer intent on bringing his plans for world domination to fruition)

[Jools G]

If you were "google" and had a friend
ask about Cafes and you then list a few

Should you (as google) pay the coffee shops for that suggestion
but only pay the cafes owned by Rupert murdock
and not the other smaller owed cafes
and not, the one owned by Australians "ABC News" (Public Broadcaster)

With the French news vs google agreement, the "News snippet"
That's fair, because its like taste testing at each coffee shop

That's not what PM Scott Morrison is asking google to do
https://youtu.be/dHypeuHePEI
 

I still think google/FB should pay real business Tax
not Tax haven money shuffle loophole peanuts

On the News Media Bargaining Code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL6XBJ5CoXo

Edited January 25, 2021 by Jools G
wording change

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, Jools G said:

and not the other smaller owed cafes
and not, the one owned by Australians "ABC News" (Public Broadcaster)

As of the latest update to the proposal (December 2020) it has been changed to allow the ABC to be eligible. https://about.abc.net.au/statements/abc-statement-on-the-news-media-and-digital-platforms-code/

 

You can read ABC's response to the latest proposal here: http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ABC-submission-ACCC-Code-Senate-Committee-process-January-2021.pdf

 

Some highlights:

• They think the definition of what a "Designated Digital Platform" is is too vague, want it to clearly define what companies it will affect
• They're against mandating platforms hand over user data to news companies
• They want platforms to provide better tools to allow them to moderate their content on their websites (in particular better tools to moderate user comments on Facebook)
• They want platforms to prioritise original news sources instead of websites that have reposted the story from another news site

 

ABC seems a lot more sensible about it. Meanwhile Newscorp is like GIVE US YOUR USER DATA AND ALGORITHMS AND PAY US

[Master Disaster]

12 hours ago, cretsiah said:

as much as I have loved the debate from @Spotty and i get it about the links.

 

Problem is the links AND THE CONTENT of those links are quite frankly crawled/ botted by google and facebook and cant easily be seperated.

 

Im trying to understand how you mind bendingly  ignore the fact that both Facebook and Google have had Legal "Policy Conditons "  that state in no uncertain terms

 

"Your content created by you is considered your own however you hereby give us complete and duplicate and free ownership / copyright rights to do with your   content as we please from

a) using in our advertising to promote our crap

b) to make money from however we see fit without paying you a dime

c) you will not be entitlted to copyright or usage payments at any point

I'm going to assume you've never heard of robots.txt?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard

Edited January 25, 2021 by Master Disaster
fixed wrong link

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

ABC seems a lot more sensible about it. Meanwhile Newscorp is like GIVE US YOUR USER DATA AND ALGORITHMS AND PAY US

It's as if there is a fundamental difference between ABC and the others, I wonder what ever that could be?

 

When two mega corporations fight, like children most often, there are never any winners. It's like a game of Who's Line is it Anyway, the points don't matter.

[Donut417]

We all know Googles pull out game is strong. They pulled out of many projects over the years. LOL. 
 

 

[thundercats_nz]

13 hours ago, mcgyvah said:

Actually I thinks it is them wanting google to pay for the pie instead of just eating it. It is designed to even the applecart ( full of metaphors today), which is quite hard because of companies like Google being allowed to own so much giving them an unfair advantage or ability to eliminate competitors. In this case its the news( information control) area (and controlling the news controls peoples ideas, even though we don't  like it , we seem to accept it ).

Before online news , Having competing news moguls has kept them (reasonably ) honest

This extends to everything Google is attempted to get (or frankly already has) a monopoly on. Lets face it, a monopoly isnt good for any consumers anywhere.

It is a governments job to promote fair competition. Historically one way governments do this by preventing takeovers ( i think fitbit is a US example?), but lets face it, Google has out run them and has too much power already.

The reason they ( Aus Gov) will apply this law to companies that they choose, is because they must, the law must apply to the company that may get the unfair market advantage. It cannot apply to all, as this will just let the big company keep its big advantage. However it may apply to the small company in the future if they get bigger and the conditions appy.

So since, Bing, for example, is nowhere near a google, it wont apply to them until they try to get too big, then it might apply.

 

There may be some disagreements on how they ( the Australian Government) are doing it, but its a pretty slippery eel and the proposed laws seem  is an attempt to promote fair competition and  any company that starts to get (or already has) a monopoly.

 

The very fact that Google threatened a government, really shows how big they think they are. France, Australia, it will become global. But lets face it. its the US that can stop it and what will they do? nothing cause Google already has too much money and power. and when China buys Google, and the US says no, Google will say... up yours,,, just like they are saying to Australia now... because apparently they have the power to determine Law, (something a lot on here seem to be supporting)  they may as well be the Government. Then when China owns Google.... walla! 1 world government....awesome.

But here' s the clincher, because we are controlled by the news, which they own. We wont care, we will just believe what they tell us or, if not,  they will just put an ad next to some news about some socks we have been Googling for and we will get distracted...

 

But seriously..back in the real world..

 

 Lets try and separate the 3 parties. 1 Google, 2 Aus Gov, 3 regular news moguls ( who own plenty elsewhere besides Australia) and in the past have been non online Googles them selves.

Agendas put simply:

• Google.... make money by owning and controlling everything
• news moguls... make money by owning and controlling everything ( or in this case try and stop their empires sliding to google)
• Australian Government (Hopefully their agenda)..  It is their job to ensure fair competition and to Make laws that promote this.

Anyway we can bitch all we want, but we have no say in this. I'm gonna spend my time on something more productive then posting here... next time GAdg  ..er Google... next time ( maniacal laugh as he leaves computer intent on bringing his plans for world domination to fruition)

Firstly, thank you for the civil and thoughtful response... Kinda sad that we have to come to a tech forum for sane political discourse!

 

I agree that the lack of regulation and the elimination of competition in the digital space has exacerbated the issue.

 

Considering all of the antitrust investigation that Microsoft had to go through for including a browser as part of Windows, the fact that a couple of companies have been allowed to exploit tax loopholes and create monopolies in a number of industries speaks to how pathetic governments have become in ensuring fair competition. At some point you just have to conclude they are being paid to look the other way...

 

In that case, the only people who are going to raise the issue are the other greedy moguls who have the power and influence to challenge them. I'm by no means a fan of the Murdochs/Newscorp etc, and what they are demanding from Google is probably excessive but if it causes there to be investigation and compromise then "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Google, Facebook, etc have started acting as publishers and therefore should be treated as such. 

 

You're right that we have very little say in this, and it becomes a huge waste of time to keep track of all of these issues. In a sense it's what we are paying politicians for, and we just need to keep reminding them to do their jobs for the public or they will be replaced by someone who will!

 

[thundercats_nz]

10 hours ago, Jools G said:

If you were "google" and had a friend
ask about Cafes and you then list a few

Should you (as google) pay the coffee shops for that suggestion
but only pay the cafes owned by Rupert murdock
and not the other smaller owed cafes
and not, the one owned by Australians "ABC News" (Public Broadcaster)

With the French news vs google agreement, the "News snippet"
That's fair, because its like taste testing at each coffee shop

That's not what PM Scott Morrison is asking google to do
https://youtu.be/dHypeuHePEI
 

I still think google/FB should pay real business Tax
not Tax haven money shuffle loophole peanuts

On the News Media Bargaining Code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL6XBJ5CoXo

You raise a very good point about the nuance of this. Not all "snippets" are created equal.

 

A list of cafes could be considered advertising - so the cafe should pay Google for the promotion.

 

However if Google scrape the famous coffee cake recipe that the cafe lists on their site to drive web traffic (and by extension, physical traffic), then Google is taking valuable, monetizable information away from the creator and using it to generate income for itself. In that case (imo) Google should compensate the cafe.

 

How much the compensation is would be part of the agreement that both parties need to make. But first you have to acknowledge that there is a problem. Google are in denial of this as they know that it will hurt their bottom line if they had act fairly, and will only change their behaviour due to regulation/agreement.

 

Completely agree that paying a proper amount of taxes would even the playing field a lot. However it's the tax departments responsibility to close the loopholes, not Google's to stop using them. It is literally written into most CFO's contracts that they will be fired if the company pays more tax than they are legally obligated to.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, thundercats_nz said:

Firstly, thank you for the civil and thoughtful response... Kinda sad that we have to come to a tech forum for sane political discourse!

 

I agree that the lack of regulation and the elimination of competition in the digial space has exacerbated the issue.

 

Considering all of the antitrust investigation that Microsoft had to go through for including a browser as part of Windows, the fact that a couple of companies have been allowed to exploit tax loopholes and create monopolies in a number of industries speaks to how pathetic governments have become in ensuring fair competition. At some point you just have to conclude they are being paid to look the other way...

 

In that case, the only people who are going to raise the issue are the other greedy moguls who have the power and influence to challenge them. I'm by no means a fan of the Murdochs/Newscorp etc, and what they are demanding from Google is probably excessive but if it causes there to be investigation and compromise then "the enemy my enemy is my friend". Google, Facebook, etc have started acting as publishers and therefore should be treated as such. 

 

You're right that we have very little say in this, and it becomes a huge waste of time to keep track of all of these issues. In a sense it's what we are paying politicians for, and we just need to keep reminding them to do their jobs for the public or they will be replaced by someone who will!

 

Kind of similar to altering the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, this particular proposal has the potential to open up a complex and messy rabbit hole that would take time, trial and error to resolve. Corruption aside, not a lot of politicians really desire to delve into something that could very well alter the entirety of how we use the internet. 

[CarlBar]

6 hours ago, thundercats_nz said:

You raise a very good point about the nuance of this. Not all "snippets" are created equal.

 

A list of cafes could be considered advertising - so the cafe should pay Google for the promotion.

 

However if Google scrape the famous coffee cake recipe that the cafe lists on their site to drive web traffic (and by extension, physical traffic), then Google is taking valuable, monetizable information away from the creator and using it to generate income for itself. In that case (imo) Google should compensate the cafe.

 

How much the compensation is would be part of the agreement that both parties need to make. But first you have to acknowledge that there is a problem. Google are in denial of this as they know that it will hurt their bottom line if they had act fairly, and will only change their behaviour due to regulation/agreement.

 

Completely agree that paying a proper amount of taxes would even the playing field a lot. However it's the tax departments responsibility to close the loopholes, not Google's to stop using them. It is literally written into most CFO's contracts that they will be fired if the company pays more tax than they are legally obligated to.

 

Again though thats not what this law says. his law says if you list the cafe's name you pay even if thats all you do. I'm not generally a fan of big tech, but in this case i'm on googles side. Make them pay for scraping, sure i can get behind that. But just linking to a news website, no. Not that i don;t get where the idea came from, it's just a classic case of trying to apply existing "IRL" norms to a virtual environment, there are some fundamental structural differences that make some things just not translate.

 

5 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Kind of similar to altering the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, this particular proposal has the potential to open up a complex and messy rabbit hole that would take time, trial and error to resolve. Corruption aside, not a lot of politicians really desire to delve into something that could very well alter the entirety of how we use the internet. 

 

Given Biden sounds hell bent on repealing that i wouldn't be so sure. Of course given how i suspect many other countries would react to that it's likely to be even messier than the straight legal factors.

[GeraneuM]

It’s not a tax technically as Google won’t be paying the government but it will be required to pay news companies. It won’t also be allowed to simply avoid linking them according to ACCC! This won’t benefit people.

While tech companies should be taxed fairly, this is not a move to do so. This is a sneaky move by news company lobbies and their rich owners to get a piece of Google and Facebook and to put more pressure on and have more control over them.

Oh, and guess who’s among those news companies pushing it hard? News Corp. the owner of Fox News, WSJ and a big bunch of Australian news outlets. Funny Government excluded Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) which is publicly funded btw initially from this “tax” but took the decision back after backlash!

Tech companies dodge taxes and should be taxed more (and pay the people) but this is not it. This is very shady.

 

[thundercats_nz]

7 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

Again though thats not what this law says. his law says if you list the cafe's name you pay even if thats all you do. I'm not generally a fan of big tech, but in this case i'm on googles side. Make them pay for scraping, sure i can get behind that. But just linking to a news website, no. Not that i don;t get where the idea came from, it's just a classic case of trying to apply existing "IRL" norms to a virtual environment, there are some fundamental structural differences that make some things just not translate.

 

 

Given Biden sounds hell bent on repealing that i wouldn't be so sure. Of course given how i suspect many other countries would react to that it's likely to be even messier than the straight legal factors.

All the code sets out is what will be considered as part of the bargaining process, not that all these things will be charged for...

 

I agree that I don't think links should be charged for, but I would bet they have been included to prevent Google and Facebook from intentionally blurring the lines about what constitutes a link, snippet, etc. There's a big difference between a simple URL and what you see in a Google search result, which most people think of as "links".

[Spotty]

Google AU is now displaying a message on its home page

 

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

[himynameisryan21]

And we thought the NBN that was meant to make everyone's internet faster that actually made most people's internet slower was bad.

[cretsiah]

@Spotty

 

thats an interesting take on things (ok maybe not the search engine ??)

Quote

Right now, no website or search engine pays to connect people to other sites through links.

from Google's page you linked to ??? i wonder when that happened,  i mean what are Affiliate links for???

 

I'd be curious to know what their outgoings are and where considering they are only claiming $134 million pre-tax .... especially when they also claim most of their stuff is done overseas and not locally..... they tried that with google pay and banking one other time.

[cretsiah]

On 1/27/2021 at 3:43 PM, ryan_lennoxbradley said:

And we thought the NBN that was meant to make everyone's internet faster that actually made most people's internet slower was bad.

nah thats your imagination lol...... they had to upgrade the network so all the spyware wouldnt slow you down so much..... but then they used java to achieve it and failed...

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, cretsiah said:

from Google's page you linked to ??? i wonder when that happened,  i mean what are Affiliate links for???

That statement is true. Search engines and websites do not pay the companies for linking to and driving traffic to their website.

This bill has nothing to do with affiliate links. Affiliate links are basically just advertisements, it's where a company is paying to have their website promoted and linked to.

 

An affiliate link would be me saying Here you can buy this TV www.amazon.com/affiliatelink/buya55inchTV, and then Amazon pays me for the traffic I drive to the website and the purchases made from my affiliate link. The company being linked to pays me because I am generating additional business for them by advertising their website and driving customers to it.

What the major news media companies in Australia want is for Google to pay the news companies if Google links to their website. So in the above example I would link to www.amazon.com/affiliatelink/buya55inchtv and then I would have to pay Amazon for linking to their website. Amazon gets the additional business and traffic to the website, they profit from selling a TV, and they also make money off me for linking to their website.

[cretsiah]

um ok well last time i checked there were 2 options for those afffiliate links (and no not everyone offered the same deal )

 

option 1 was what you state but option 2 was purely for getting people to click the link (no purchases required) i know because i had tried it a few years back...

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, cretsiah said:

um ok well last time i checked there were 2 options for those afffiliate links (and no not everyone offered the same deal )

 

option 1 was what you state but option 2 was purely for getting people to click the link (no purchases required) i know because i had tried it a few years back...

That's all still advertising and promotional deals, a search engine is not that. Neither of these two things you listed have anything to do with Google Search, Google Adsense yes but not Google Search.

 

You can however pay Google Search for a priority search result for certain key words but these are required to be listed and identified as an advertisement, the words also have to be directly related to your business or trademarks and cannot infringe on another company's i.e. Coca Cola cannot buy advertising results for the word Pepsi.

 

The above is an advertisement that Ryanair paid Google for, thing is Ryanair paid for it so there isn't any arguments between either about link tax or whos benefiting off who. It's a straight marketing deal and doesn't have anything to do with this proposed Australia law.

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, cretsiah said:

um ok well last time i checked there were 2 options for those afffiliate links (and no not everyone offered the same deal )

 

option 1 was what you state but option 2 was purely for getting people to click the link (no purchases required) i know because i had tried it a few years back...

Whether it is a kickback when someone buys something using the affiliate link or 0.1c per unique click is irrelevant. In both scenarios it is the company that is being linked to that is paying.

The Government wants to force Google to pay the companies they are linking to (not like affiliate links where the website being linked to is the one who pays).

 

[Delicieuxz]

Microsoft's Bing ready to step in if Google pulls search from Australia, minister says

 

Quote

The communications minister, Paul Fletcher, said Google dominated in Australia with a market share of 93% but there were other players, including Microsoft and DuckDuckGo, that were talking to the government about replacing it.

 

...

 

Fletcher played down Google’s threat, saying it “don’t always follow through”, and reiterated that the government would not back down.

 

...

 

“The Microsoft CEO reached out to the prime minister and proposed a meeting, accompanied by senior executives, I was able to join that meeting, and we had a very informative discussion about Microsoft’s interest in the Australian market. At the moment they have a small market share in search, but they’re interested in expanding that, they’re interested in developing the presence of Bing here.”

 

Fletcher said the prime minister told Facebook’s global CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, that he would not “change from the path that we have set out”, which is based on “a very thorough public policy process”.

 

...

 

Facebook and Google’s threats to withdraw services should send a chill through those who value democracy, the Centre for Responsible Technology’s Peter Lewis said.

 

“Let’s be clear: what Google and Facebook are really terrified of is the existence of this legislation, because this will provide a global model for addressing the impact of their market dominance of the advertising industry,” Lewis said.

 

“Capitulation will be a recognition that big tech is now more powerful than our elected government, a proposition that is just not sustainable.”

 

[divito]

Still amazes me that the government/companies can try and bite the hand that feeds them.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, divito said:

Still amazes me that the government/companies can try and bite the hand that feeds them.

There’s an entire newspaper in britian that actually specializes in that.  Their slogan is “biting the hand that feeds them”

[Mark Kaine]

20 hours ago, Spotty said:

Whether it is a kickback when someone buys something using the affiliate link or 0.1c per unique click is irrelevant. In both scenarios it is the company that is being linked to that is paying.

The Government wants to force Google to pay the companies they are linking to (not like affiliate links where the website being linked to is the one who pays).

 

That graphic is confusing... so does that mean affiliate links are still an OK and only Google or other search machines aren't allowed to profit from them anymore, or does it mean affiliate links are dead, period? 

 

I mean both doesn't make too much sense honestly, but if it's *only* the search machine that's not allowed to profit anymore... that would at least be very funny...