> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.<p>> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.<p>I don't think Google actually made either of these claims in their letter.<p>They didn't mention charging for services at all. They said "the free services you use may be at risk". Given the context, I took that to mean the quality of the service would tank if they had to share their algorithm changes.<p>The data portion is a little less clear. Google was very weasel wordy - they definitely wanted it to sound like they would have to turn over user data, but if you read carefully they only say they would have to share data about how they collect the user data.
They really should stop saying "Australian news media" when they are referring to commercial entities only.<p>The fact that the public ABC and SBS media are not allowed to be compensated says everything about the intent and motivation of this policy.
When Murdoch and Google duke it out using the Australian people as their human shield I find nothing to be happy about and plenty to be sad about. Both parties here are disingenuous about their stated positions, both are rather cynical in how the perform their negotiations. In the end the public, no matter what, will end up the loser because neither of these parties has their best interest at heart. Murdoch just wants money, Google wants to get as much content as they can for free and meanwhile whatever they agree on will be paid for by the public in one way or another. This is a disgusting spectacle at many levels.
To fully understand this, it would be a good idea to understand the degree of influence that the Murdoch media has on the Australian landscape.<p>Murdoch media owns the vast majority of newspapers across Australia and is also more or less the only cable TV provider in Australia.<p>A good highlight of the power the Murdoch press has over Australia would be to look at the fact that the vast majority of journalists who work in the Canberra press gallery (parliamentary journalists), work for The Australian or other Murdoch entities, and have such a stranglehold on political journalism that it is a commonly accepted truth in Australian journalism that "if you want to know tomorrows news, read The Australian today."<p>The real kicker is that the Murdoch presses political biases are not subtle or secret, they are about as overt and blatant as you can possibly get with The Australian frequently running full front-page articles trashing one political party (Labor, the "left" leaning party) and heaping praise on the other (Liberal/National, the "right" leaning party).<p>With all of that context, the bill suddenly takes on a slightly more sinister tone when you realise that it is more or less designed to benefit one man and his media empire.
The misinformation seems to be in the ACCC letter, since the Google letter [0] doesn't claim that they'd have to charge for Google Search or Youtube.<p>Not surprising that they would try to use the current mood regarding tech companies to defend the government's position though.<p>[0] <a href="https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/" rel="nofollow">https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open...</a>
Looks like Google has now started showing a popup [0] in Australia which links to the open letter [1].<p>[0] <a href="https://i.imgur.com/A3IPkQy.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/A3IPkQy.png</a><p>[1] <a href="https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open-letter" rel="nofollow">https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open...</a>
This is a very disappointing response from the ACCC. It seems to be extremely misleading in its own right.<p>> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services<p>Google did not state this. The ACCC - the supposed detached "fair" regulator, in charge of creating this code, just made something up to suit their own ends.<p>> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses<p>The code [1] literally says:<p>"The responsible digital platform must ... give information about how the registered news business corporation can gain access to ... the data that the digital platform service collects (whether or not it shares the data with the registered news business)about the registered news business’ users through their engagement with covered news content made available by the digital platform service" (Page 10, Section 52M).<p>The ACCC here is straight up lying. I would like any of the people vocally defending it here to say what they think about this.<p>NB: I think it is quite telling that it's quite hard to dig out the <i>actual</i> draft code [1] - they don't seem to link to it in any of their press releases etc. They actually don't want people to be able to discuss this openly from what I can tell:<p>[1] <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill%20-%20TREASURY%20LAWS%20AMENDENT%20%28NEWS%20MEDIA%20AND%20DIGITAL%20PLATFORMS%20MANDATORY%20BARGAINING%20CODE%29%20BILL%202020.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...</a>
From the ACCC's own release:<p><i>In addition, the platforms must give news media businesses clear information about the data they collect through users’ interactions with news on digital platforms; for example how long users spend on an article, how many articles they consume in a certain time period, and
other information about user engagement with news content across digital platform services.</i>[1]<p>Sure sounds like they have to collect and share user data to me.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-news-media-to-negotiate-payment-with-major-digital-platforms" rel="nofollow">https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-news-media-...</a>
Google misrepresenting something which might cut into their profits? Who'd have thought it?<p>I hate AMP, and this law might see the death or at least reigning in of it. I hate the way Google has killed niche websites by scraping their content and then profiting from it. I hate the way Google says they want to keep user data safe, while also using that data to increase their ad revenue. Fuck Google.
I'm Australian, and I created an account just to comment on this issue.<p>Imagine Google News or the Facebook news feed were normal news websites. If you count their traffic as the amount of times people went to those websites just to read news, their raw traffic would dwarf any other news website in Australia by an order of magnitude.<p>Journalistic websites have editorial standards, and at least some relationship and commitment to the truth (even the Murdoch ones). A news feed, while algorithmically generated, is for all intents and purposes the front page of a newspaper for many, many people.<p>There is no editor of a news feed. No one checks that what bubbles up to the top passes basic fact checking standards. Most importantly, there's no consequences for misinformation and conspiracy theories being on the same front page as a story about some construction disrupting your commute tomorrow.<p>The main gist of the new code of conduct, to me, seems like the ability for news websites to collectively bargain with a multinational corporation that essentially controls the news landscape in this country. We aren't the USA. Our news websites aren't the New York Times and the Washington Post. Unfortunately, the two biggest are owned by fairly evil companies (Channel nine and News Corp). Rupert Murdoch himself controls 70% of the Australian media landscape. When he dies, however, this law will still exist.<p>We've seen the consequences of a journalistic landscape that exists solely through social media without any significant independent news sources in Myanmar in 2015. Australia won't end up like that, but allowing independent journalism to wither on the vine distorts our ability to participate in democracy.<p>As a collective, if every single news organisation decided to go on strike from Facebook or Google tomorrow, the amount of money advertisers would pay them would drop off a cliff. Google is scared by this because they know that the value they give to the consumer is the sum of Australian journalism, a tasting menu of all the best stuff that newspapers have to offer. Why, then, shouldn't that sum itself have the ability to bargain against Google and get itself a better deal?
I feel like this time it's different , google (and big tech it represents) will get little sympathy on reddit and other watering holes. Even if the law seems restricting, it's Google who broke the social contract of the internet and turned from a benevolent rent-seeker to a feudal lord. (E.g. check this: <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing</a> , google just pastes the lyrics and there is NO link to read them on the original site. Even if musixmatch is getting paid , they are made irrelevant and this is a poisoned pill).<p>Reading the defenses here in HN, I have become personally partial to conspiracy theories that too many paid commenters are among the crowd here.<p>Plus i don't get what the fuss is about google news. I don't think it's used much outside the US, and even these websites aren't just going to lose all their traffic, because people are addicted to news. They 'll be partly visiting local websites more often, and this shift may actualy be enough to revive the income-starved journalism profession.
For the health of society, all recommender algorithms have to be daylighted. For a start.<p>Yes, the gamification will be terrible. So what? Is maximal advertising revenue for monopolies societally important?<p>Every other efficient open market is heavily regulated. Accountability, transparency, fair play, information symmetry, prohibit self-dealing & conflicts of interest, tort, etc.<p>Right now we can't even imagine applying casino level scrutiny to social media.<p>What's so special about social media that it doesn't warrant some hygiene, some guard rails?
This media release is confusing.<p>It was almost as if somebody said you need to put out a press release so find something to put in it, rather than we have something really important to say so we must put out a press release.<p>Who is making these decisions?
A small number of media owners control old media in Australia. There is a single national newspaper and most cities have a single daily. They are generally owned by the same person. That person flies in people at election time to aggressively campaign for the government of their choice. This only makes sense if there is some quid pro quo. I have no love for Facebook or Google but the Australian government does what it must to keep favour with media proprietors or risk toxic campaigns against them.
I’m just curious if anyone knows... does this specifically call out Google or does this also potentially have implications for other news aggregators that work in a similar way? Could this also target reddit or even hacker news?<p>I couldn’t find where they define the platform that is Google.
This response does not respond to the claims made in the open letter. The bill as drafted is pure corporate rent-seeking, and appears to serve no genuine public good.
TLDR:<p>- google has monopoly on search results.<p>- traditional news companies not making enough money, blame google.<p>- Australian government decides it knows what is best, regulate the monopoly.<p>I would love to hear some input from actual journalists. It's telling that in the whole 29 page draft, journalist is mentioned twice and consumer(as a natural person) is mentioned once[1]. From the draft, I don't get the feeling the Australian government is really interested in a healthy news media sector but rather, making the existing news media sector happy.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill%20-%20TREASURY%20LAWS%20AMENDENT%20%28NEWS%20MEDIA%20AND%20DIGITAL%20PLATFORMS%20MANDATORY%20BARGAINING%20CODE%29%20BILL%202020.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20Bill...</a>
> This will address a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.<p>This is so untrue. News Corp is easily the most powerful political entity in Australia. It’s not a stretch to say they pick prime ministers.
I'm very curious how this law wouldn't violate various free trade deals Australia has struck.<p>Surely a tax that explicitly names only foreign companies is the opposite of free trade?<p>Sure, China has driven a truck through the whole concept of the WTO over decades and so I doubt anything will happen. Free trade deals are very much toothless, on the assumption that they are supposed to make sense on their own terms so enforcement is not required. But I can see the USA especially if Trump wins a second term deciding that Australia should be trade sanctioned for discrimination against US businesses. The White House won't want to see tech firms become piggybanks for failed industries and economies around the world.
> A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy.<p>This part at the end is interesting. If this fight goes down that rabbit hole, bearing in mind filter bubbles, Cambridge Analytica etc. it may lead to a discussion worth having
Google is totally in the wrong here, and ACCC is doing its usual good work of protecting the Aussie consumer. It's interesting to watch Google try to squirm out of this though - they probably see it for the precedent it is.<p>Google relies heavily on third-party content that they don't pay for in search results. If this law forces them to negotiate payment for that practice then I'm all for it.
> A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy.<p>This feels like a slap in the face. Whoever wrote this would be fully aware that our media sector is anything but healthy, and that our “democracy” flatlined years ago.<p>I can only imagine that this was written by a committee that was sinking beers and laughing their asses off as they watched this post go live.
Let's put aside whether Google had justified concerns about this legalislation.<p>What's more appriopriate? Having a company incite the people in a foreign country to change laws or do it using diplomacy using experts in your state departement?<p>We are only talking about allied countries to the US because google doesn't do this with, for example, china, russia, north korea, etc...<p>I'm NOT advocating they should do this with those countries. Rather they should get out of the politics business or accept the regulations that come with it.
This whole thing is really weird. We're bending over backwards to try and accommodate Google being allowed to profit from other peoples content. How about we simply ban Google and Facebook from reproducing news on their own site?<p>And if we are truly believe "A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy." we need to punish both Google and content creators for publishing things that are demonstrably false. Fake News in otherwords.
I am for any law or policy that hurts Google. And I really don’t care whether it’s fair or unfair.<p>I’m not sure any two companies have caused more worldwide carnage, in the history of the world, than FB and Google.