Google threatens to remove its search engine from Australia if new law goes into effect
Google is threatening to pull its search engine from an entire country — Australia — if a proposed law goes into effect that would force Google to pay news publishers for their content.
"If this version of the Code were to become law it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia," Google Australia and New Zealand VP Mel Silva told Australia's Senate Economics Legislation Committee today.
"We have had to conclude after looking at the legislation in detail we do not see a way, with the financial and operational risks, that we could continue to offer a service in Australia," she added, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
The company, which has been lobbying against Australia's plan for months, claims the country is trying to make it pay to show links and snippets to news stories in Google Search, not just for news articles featured in places like Google News, saying it "would set an untenable precedent for our business, and the digital economy" and that it's "not compatible with how search engines work."
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday January 22 2021, @11:13PM (46 children)
... Neither story makes this explicitly clear. Is this talking about Google News displaying content from the news services? Or is this about Google search linking to the platforms stories in the "news" section of search or the all results page? When I search Google either way I don't see that I'm actually seeing the stories but rather links, unlike Google news aggregating news content. Just curious if Google is saying 'yeah you want us to pay for Google News items we'll pull search.' Or is there something different about how Google presents to them?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @12:48AM (27 children)
There are two parts to the law. The first part requires Google to pay for articles quoted in Google News, which is fair, but the second part requires Google to notify news companies any time they change their ranking algorithms, which is ridiculous.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @12:59AM (25 children)
"which is fair"? My entire ass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:12AM (3 children)
Paying to reprint article excerpts is fair, depending on how much is quoted. Fair use only covers so much.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @11:12PM (2 children)
Fair use currently covers that entirely and this law would destroy fair use in news entirely. So, no, you're a fucking idiot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 25 2021, @04:30PM (1 child)
In all fairness, they are talking about Australian law. Their copyright laws are a bit different than ours, if I remember correctly.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:13AM
No, we're talking about ideals. I'm saying fuck em and feed em fishheads if they want to charge for sending someone's site more traffic not that Oz can't have whatever bullshit laws they feel like writing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday January 23 2021, @03:08AM (1 child)
You should get some more sun, not spend so much time indoors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @03:21AM
Tell that to his "entire ass"! You love the donkey!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:40AM (2 children)
Fair. Hmmm. Considering how fair google is to the ad marketplace which the publishers require to survive ... my low esteem for Google clouds my logic and makes me think "Do it!!!! People will see that DDG is better anyway -- then where will you be google?"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @11:13PM
That's fair, so long as you realize it's happening.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Monday January 25 2021, @02:35AM
Yes fortunately there are only so many continents to threaten their exodus from, they'll come crawling back if Aussie stands their ground. unlike the regenerative harvest of individual users they like to fuck with. google could fuck off from my country without needing a reason if they like.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:58AM
Google did already agree to pay for Google News snippets in Australia and two other countries. The search thing was a bridge too far.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:12PM (14 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @06:15PM
Commentary - producing a more informed populace and fostering discussion related to their articles.
Criticism - Google etc. are now placing automated fact checks right next to links or article titles or not allowing them to be posted or shared at all. This is chilling, but makes them able to use the criticism angle.
Furthermore, the article title should not in any way be able to be copyrighted and Google sends anyone who clicks on it to the actual site. They're shooting themselves in the foot on this one...
There might be a valid discussion to be had about excerpts, how long, etc but that is not what this legislation covers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @08:21PM (6 children)
The fair use doctrine was never intentionally created, period. That's why it's called a doctrine, and not a law. So there goes the rest of your argument: the doctrine is consists entirely of precedent, and expecting anybody here to go search and cite the entire volume of case law on this subject, seems a bit unfair to me.
Here's the beauty of case law: it never intentionally covers any new case, until some judge decides that it does. "This particular thing isn't covered" is therefore never an argument, unless it's coming from a judge presiding over a case.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 24 2021, @07:19PM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2021, @08:44PM (4 children)
What's that have to do with Australian law?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday January 25 2021, @08:51AM (3 children)
You are wasting your time with that argument. Americans seem to think that their laws have precedence over all others when it so suits them.
As I have repeatedly stated in various comments, if you want to do business in country X, then you have to obey the laws of country X. Quoting the laws, doctrines or accepted practices in the USA is completely irrelevant to the discussion unless they are countering a claim made in another comment by indicating that even US law does not agree with what is being claimed as fact.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:11AM (2 children)
That's kind of the point of TFA. They're saying they'll stop doing business with Oz. It has nothing to do with our laws but everything to do with our ideals.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday January 26 2021, @07:13AM (1 child)
Your ideals are not shared by every other country. Expecting them to uphold your ideals to support a US company is misplaced.
I'm not being critical of your ideals either - if that is what the US people want then it is fine by me, in America. But other countries view things differently - sometimes very differently - and US ideals are irrelevant when in those countries.
Finally, this is actually nothing to do with your 'ideals' - this is just a US business trying to impose its own interests on a government. If a company can't survive without following the laws of a country they should simply take their business elsewhere - as they are threatening to do here. But trying to influence future laws is not something they have a right to do. They should have no say on the outcome of elections, the passing of laws, or dictating how people should live their lives.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 27 2021, @03:32PM
You're reading what you want to see instead of what is, man. I argue they should do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because it's what we do. I point to US law only because it's something that we got right. Probably by accident but right is right.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @11:14PM (5 children)
The hell it wasn't. Being able to quote a portion of another copyrighted work for newsworthy purposes is one of the primary pillars of the fair use doctrine.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 24 2021, @07:20PM (4 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:09AM (3 children)
On the contrary, commentary and criticism of copyrighted works is the entire reason fair use exists. Journalistic and educational endeavors being the primary beneficiaries of the doctrine over the years.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday January 26 2021, @09:31AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 27 2021, @03:29PM (1 child)
You can keep arguing that but the courts decide what fair use means since they invented it in the first place. And they've consistently ruled that de minimis quoting someone and pointing back to the work they're quoting from is perfectly acceptable for a very long time. For pretty much anything even only educational or newsworthy if the light's hitting from a specific angle and you hold your mouth right.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 27 2021, @11:57PM
So:
> consistently
Evidence quoted above disagrees.
> the courts decide what fair use means since they invented it in the first place
Do you really not know how hilariously wrong that statement is? Did you skip civics? And history? Heck, I'm not even American, and even I facepalmed immediately upon seeing it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:53AM
Search algorithm? It sounds like they're on to Google altering results including 'organic' ones to product tie as Rumbles lawsuit shows evidence of.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sonamchauhan on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:11AM (17 children)
Must Google now pay citizen reporters on Twitter? What about DuckDuckGo and Yandex? If they don't have a local office, are they off the hook?
And how about a few microcents thrown Soylentnews' way for this nuanced, thoughtful and well-researched opinion piece? (IMO of course). Who decides what's news, and who maintains the list of publishers?
I am tired of clicking search results only to find it hidden behind a paywall, with no cache. If Google stopped indexing paid-for clickbait, the world would be better off overall.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:34AM (15 children)
It would be nice if Google simply stopped listing anything behind a paywall. Just treat paywalled sites as if the robots.txt had booted them out. Most paywalls would fall within a few weeks.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:51AM (12 children)
Perhaps they could flag paywalled sites as such, so you can be fairly warned before you click the link.
Even better, they could provide another link for you to install a paywall-blocking extension on your browser.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:29AM (10 children)
The proposed law explicitly forbids search providers from discriminating for or against paid content so google won't be able to stop listing paywalled anything and will be forced to either pay the news agencies - which is impossible since there's potentially an infinite number of news providers - or stop serving google search in Australia altogether.
This law was carefully crafted so the only resolution will be for the Australian government to establish a list of (mostly Rupert Murdoch owned) "creditable newspapers" and destroy the free press via the tax codes. i.e. if you can't get journalists bloggers to write good things about you, make it illegal for them to make money off writing bad things about you.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @05:24AM (9 children)
Admittedly I know almost nothing about the Australian constitution, but would this law even be legal there? I'm 99% sure such a law would swiftly be struck down here in the US as unconstitutional: it's an infringement of free speech and the free press.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @05:54AM (2 children)
Australia has no free speech. https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2021/01/australia-does-not-have-freedom-of-speech/ [lifehacker.com.au]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @06:41AM
It does. Not guaranteed by a constitutional act, tho'.
(Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:20PM
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
-- https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
The Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly as UN Resolution A/RES/217(III)[A] on 10 December 1948 in Palais de Chaillot, Paris.[40][b] Of the 58 UN members at the time,[41] 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained,[42][43] and Honduras and Yemen failed to vote or abstain.[44]
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Adoption
Australia was one of the 48 who voted in favour.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:14PM (5 children)
False. The freedom of speech and press in US is constitutionally restricted by:
1. Calls for imminent lawless action: Obvious enough but google it if you don't get it.
2. Copyrights: Basically, if you're not releasing the speech to the public domain, it's copyrighted by default and therefore it's a product that the government is within its rights to regulate or outright ban.
3. Taxes: Nothing says the government can't drive professional journalism to extinction through impossibly heavy taxation.
So, if the speech is literally free, sure. The government can't infringe upon it. But if you're retaining copyrights and charging money for it, it's trade and commerce and the government can infringe upon it.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:22PM (2 children)
I'm not sure how you've bastardised UK law, but the version you inherited, and the international treaties that almost everyone's adopted since, says absolutely nothing like that conclusion.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday January 23 2021, @05:23PM (1 child)
The legality of the DMCA act is based on the right of government to regulate copyrighted works and even goes beyond that to forbid potentially public domain works that aim to circumvent measures meant to protect copyrights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States#Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act [wikipedia.org]
Australia and many EU nations have parallel import bans on books based on the right of government to block copyrighted speech since it's commerce and trade.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 24 2021, @07:11PM
That's not my reading of the DMCA at all. Which title do you think it's part of, and where? DMCA's about infringement, not about the protected works themselves (apart from the irrelevant temporary copies bit).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @06:22PM (1 child)
First, this is just plain false:
Basically, if you're not releasing the speech to the public domain, it's copyrighted by default and therefore it's a product that the government is within its rights to regulate or outright ban
BS. The US government cannot simply ban speech it doesn't like just because it wasn't explicitly released to the public domain upon publication. That is utterly ridiculous. I don't know about Australia, but in the US this is preposterous.
I don't get your point. Sure, the government has the ability to regulate copyrights, which comes into play here because the material Google is quoting is copyrighted (but in the US, protected under established "fair-use" case law--i.e., you are allowed to quote someone's copyrighted work as long as you correctly attribute it and don't just wholesale copy the whole thing). But that's not the central issue here: the issue is that this law forbids discriminating between paid and unpaid content. Again, this is basic free speech: if I want to write articles about some news events, and I want to mention some other articles that have already discussed the matter, I am perfectly free to pick and choose which of those articles I want to point to, or not. If I don't want to mention Breitbart because I think it's garbage, I have that right. My reasons for discriminating for or against different sources is again my right. I don't see how in any liberal democracy this right can be curtailed. This would basically be like the Australian government telling news sites that they MUST link to Russia Today articles about stuff, just because.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Sunday January 24 2021, @12:20AM
They won't ban the speech. They'll ban it's trade and distribution. That's the point: The moment speech is copyrighted, it's a product and is no longer free speech. So unless you explicitly put it under the public domain, congress can ban specific forms of it or just tax it to oblivion without changing the constitution.
Fair-use isn't just case law for the courts to decide how to interpret. It's the direct consequence of the Copyright Act of 1976 and congress can amend it without touching the constitution.
Look, a lot of right we take for constitutionally granted aren't explicit or are left for congress to implement. Look up the legal framework behind free-speech zones. Speech isn't nearly as free as you think it is.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @05:29PM
The extension is called bypass paywalls, and not only won't they link to it, it also isn't allowed in the chrome store. It is on github [github.com] though. Or at the Firefox add-ons site.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @12:23PM
It would be nice if Google simply stopped existing. The low-level employees could be whipped to death in the public square. The mid-level management could be fed into woodchippers feet first. The C-level execs could be slowly vivisected on cable pay-for-view. The data centers destroyed piece by piece, leaving no stone atop a stone.
The janitors could be left to live and bear witness to the righteousness of the slaughter.
Some might think this is a bit much, but I really don't like Google.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:35PM
I agree.
Or at least give the user the choice to only access open content. And maybe even build a Play store payment integration for ppl who want to purchase content with a minimum of fuss.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:09AM
Only if they gross at least AU$150k per year.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 22 2021, @11:16PM (12 children)
Google has just reached an agreement in France to pay publishers. Australia can call Google's bluff, and if Google follows through, every search engine in the world will move in to fill the void.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/google-inks-agreement-in-france-on-paying-publishers-for-news-reuse/ [techcrunch.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @12:54AM
It looks like the Australian law goes farther than the French law and includes terms that affect Search. The ACCC denies it but it wouldn't be the first time they've tried to pull a fast one. The question then becomes "do those terms affect other search engines?" If so then expect other search engines to flee as well.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tokolosh on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:12AM (2 children)
Every search engine that moves in to fill the void will have to pay, too. Too bad if you are a struggling startup, trying to compete with Google. Nice search engine you have there, pity if something were to happen to it.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:25PM (1 child)
No, you have freedom of contract. The government doesn't fix the price or the terms. Every search engine that moves in to fill the void will be able to try to negotiate a sweet deal.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @06:22PM
Yes, because any up and coming search competitor will certainly be able to negotiate a sweeter deal than Google.
This is how large established players ensure they are not easily challenged. See also Amazon and Etsy and eBay suddenly being okay with collecting taxes on out of State sales. Or Big Tech salivating over proposed requirements for automatic censorship and copyright policing. The necessary systems are a huge burden on any potential competitors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:29AM
France >> Australia
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+France+Australia [wolframalpha.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:36AM (1 child)
I don't get it: how can a government *force* Google to do business in their country? If Google wants to simply stop showing links to French press sources, they should have that right. If this market is *so* valuable, then surely some other search engine will step in and pay these publishers to link to their content, right? Right?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:41AM
Look a bit further than France. France, being part of the EU, is setting the tone for further negotiations with the remaining countries within the EU.
Just like Australia, Google has the option of closing down negotiations in Europe. They won't. It's a lucrative market, and Google is probably willing to pay a lot more than France is getting out of this deal. But, naturally, Google doesn't want France to know how much they are willing to pay. Keep those cards close to the chest now!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:32AM (4 children)
This is the heart of the matter. If it was just a search engine providing links to news stories then there would be no issue. There hasn't been an issue for years. What the content producers, news agencies and the like, are crying foul over is that google scrapes their page for content and shows that content on their site. Which means the news sites don't get the hits and views and hence ad revenue - via site links or their normal advertisers - due to the reduced traffic.
Google is wrong here. If they want to be a search engine and show links to sites, then fine. If they want to scrape sites and show content then pay the sites for it.
Most sites don't care. Stackoverflow really doesn't care if you cache their pages. They welcome it. They don't use it as a primary source of revenue. The news sites do. Therein lies the difference.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @03:33AM (3 children)
If a site doesn't want their content crawled they can place a robots.txt file in and stop all of it. They don't because they would become invisible. They want to get paid and paywalls only work for a few really large sites and advertising is dying as people realize it was just a money laundering operation.
No, best to just pull the plug on AU, close up shop and throw a page to anyone connecting from there telling them they need a VPN. Make an example.
And I'm saying that as someone who would dance in the street if Google and all the other oligarchs got trust busted into smithereens. This law is just a dumb idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:24PM
That doesn't seem like a solution to the problem posed by the parent post. It said that google scrape and display news articles, cutting the news site out of the loop. Disallowing search engine robots to index the site would remove them from search results, which I very much doubt is what any publisher want. SEO SEO SEO!
I have no clue if google actually does that with news articles. I have no desire to use anything made by that company.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:34PM (1 child)
None of these sites have ever complained about the crawling part, and if they have, that complaint is most sensibly expressed in the form of a robots.txt file, which google honours.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2021, @09:41PM
Agreed. And the easy test is to write a CGI that submits queries to, and scrapes results from, the anonymous public google.com html query page (don't forget to clean up those sneaky links so that clicks go straight to the target and not to that google tracker) to act as a new search engine .. no google cookies, no google hit tracks and no google ads .. then see which side of the argument they come down on.
Caveat: Im an au DDG user with my own mail server and run web sites from my own pocket, so I won't miss google if they pack up and piss off, but I also agree with two former Prime Minister's that publicly argue Murdock should be knocked down a few pegs too.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @11:24PM (13 children)
Even convicts get something right once in a while.
Email us the text of the statue - we need it in America.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:03AM (12 children)
Idiot. That law in the US would end this site and nearly every other site that aggregates news as a significant part of its operations.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:20AM (6 children)
You are a clown. SN is no google, trust me.
As much as I love SN, it's no "news aggregator," it's a ... SoylentNews is all I can say. The few people who are aware of SN, we come here to bitch, moan, argue, and rant. Nobody comes here fore generic "news."
Nevertheless, convince me why that law would put SN in trouble, and I will gladly concede my comment was "idiotic."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:39AM (2 children)
WTF? This site absolutely is a news aggregator, except that it adds a comment section. This site hosts links to news articles, and it includes fair-use copies of parts of the articles. That's exactly what Google does, except that the snippets here on SN are usually much longer. And people do come here for "news", but not "generic", and instead for news that's focused on the tech sector. That's no different than Google News showing you different kinds of news in separate sections (US, world, science, sports, space, etc.), except there's only 1 section here ("tech").
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:47AM (1 child)
Will you, like, butt out? I am communicating with buzzy boy, here.
Unless you can elucidate (that's a word, right?) why the law will screw with SN.
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Monday January 25 2021, @09:04AM
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:47AM (2 children)
By that law we most certainly are. We quote bits of their FA in every non-Meta story and that idiotic law would require us to start paying them every time we did. Which we could in no way afford to do and without quotes you lot would have to do your own writing (which you wouldn't but if you did...) and then we would be an essay site not an aggregation and discussion site.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:00AM (1 child)
Did you actually read the statue text?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @03:36AM
Sure, I read the statue text.
It reads: "Made in China".
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Saturday January 23 2021, @03:29AM (2 children)
Follow the money.
Does SN make money by letting people comment on news published elsewhere?
More than that, stories at SN are (usuallly) someone's take on the news published elsewhere and not verbatim quotes without any additional content. Google just quotes content published elsewhere, no context, no opinions, no questions raised.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @03:53AM (1 child)
> Does SN make money by letting people comment on news published elsewhere?
TMB does not enjoy the fancy life of fishing, chicken bog and rejecting same-sex marriage on financial contributions alone. Donate with your soul!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @11:08PM
Heh, moron. I don't give the smallest rat's ass about same sex marriage, thank you very much. I am not a conservative. I am a liberal. That is not the same as a progressive. Progressivism is what you get when you take racism, greed, envy, lust for power, and a burning desire to bend others to your will by force then give it a shiny veneer of bullshit to keep people with no damned brains from noticing that they've become reprehensible pieces of shit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:35PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 23 2021, @11:09PM
That law passed in the US would mean the end of the fair use doctrine as it pertains to news. So, no, we wouldn't be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by progo on Friday January 22 2021, @11:49PM (13 children)
What's the down-side for anyone but Google, if you can't use Google Search in Australia?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @12:59AM (11 children)
Speak for yourself, but I can see downside in being unable to Google things like "cure eastern brown snake bite", "cure funnel-web bite", "cure blue-ringed octopus bite"...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:37AM
I've got the cures memorized, son.
Place your head between your knees, and kiss your ass good-bye.
Feel better now?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:44AM (3 children)
This isn't a problem: Australians can simply use one of the alternate search engines that's happy to pony up lots of money to the publishers for the privilege of linking to them. I'm sure there will be plenty of such search engines happy to step in and take Google's place....
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:45AM (1 child)
Wrong. The other engines just won't link to sites they have to pay for. Done. Easy.
You want news? Go to their site directly.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @05:34AM
I guess I should have added "/s"...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @06:54AM
Get ready to pay for the search service.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:02AM
Ya ok zoomer. You know not everyone is helpless without an "app for that" to tell them what to do.
Besides, the treatment for those bites is GET THE PERSON TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL ASAP!
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:43AM (4 children)
Or you can DDG it instead.
Unless you're dead before you can reach your web breowser.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @03:42AM (3 children)
DDG merely proxies Bing. If Microsoft does not feel like paying for the privilege of providing free service to AU citizens, then you won't see AU stuff in DDG searches.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:16PM (2 children)
No it doesn't. It has its own crawler and uses a lot of other data sources, one of which is the service provided by Bing. Even if Bing (as a consumer service) pulled out, DDG could continue to access that service and provide a consumer service in AU.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @09:15PM (1 child)
DDG may have herds of magic unicorns IN THEORY, but the lists of results they return match Bing line-for-line IN PRACTICE. Unless you can demonstrate something that DDG finds and Bing does not, your belief is unfounded.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday January 24 2021, @02:40PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:01AM
Google are hoping that the threat will cause the public to pressure the govt to pull the laws.
But Murdoch runs the govt so it wont change shit.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jasassin on Friday January 22 2021, @11:58PM (18 children)
Australia has been making far out ludicrous laws for years now. I don't know much about France, the only news I hear from there is American tourist women getting acid thrown in their faces.
I don't care if I never hear any news from France or Australia. If Google just pulled all their business out of France and Australia, the people can use a local news site or watch the news on T.V. or, heaven forbid, by a newspaper.
If I were Google, the only thing they'd be getting from me is the bird. Have fun with your Bing search!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2, Disagree) by MIRV888 on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:19AM (15 children)
Google is strong arming nation states.
This is how you end up with Weyland-Yutani.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:47AM (11 children)
They aren't strong-arming anyone (as far as this particular issue goes). They don't like the way these laws threaten their business, so they're merely warning that they'll pull out if they're forced to abide by them. They should have that right. Google is a foreign company in these countries; if they think these laws are so great, then they should be *happy* that Google is leaving, because this will relieve their local search engines of competition and they'll be able to flourish instead. I'm sure Australians will be much happier using search engines run by, say, their ISPs (just like how ISP-run email service is SO much better than GMail).
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday January 23 2021, @04:08AM (9 children)
Google has become indispensable and they know it. They are forcing nations to do what they want how they want. That's strong arming.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @05:21AM (8 children)
Google isn't "indispensible". They aren't even the only search engine: you're free to use DDG (which is what I normally use; I only go to Google when DDG's results aren't good enough, and frequently with programming stuff), Bing, etc. There's nothing stopping someone else from making a search engine that focuses more on nation-specific news/publisher sites like this.
Furthermore, they aren't "forcing nations to do what they want how they want". They're merely providing links to other websites, based on keyword searches. If you don't want your website found, then don't put it out there for everyone to see it. Or alter robots.txt so that Google can't spider it, and they'll keep it out of the search results for you. If I go to my neighbor and say, "hey dude! There's a story on cnn.com about the inauguration! Go check it out!", that does not entitle CNN to payment from me for pointing my neighbor to their site. If anything, they should be happy that I drove more traffic their way.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday January 23 2021, @12:25PM (7 children)
Google is a little more than a search engine. I can't speak for Australia, but Google is indispensable in the US.
The repercussions of Google telling your country to f*ck off are a bit more than you seem to think.
How dare a nation state do something Google doesn't like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @05:33PM
I can't think of anything the average user does regularly that Google does but Apple and Microsoft combined don't also do. Nevermind the smaller or more independent options.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 23 2021, @06:25PM
I can't speak for Australia, but Google is indispensable in the US.
I'm calling bullshit on this ridiculous claim. Literally tens of millions of iPhone users go through daily life without using any Google services.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday January 23 2021, @09:28PM (4 children)
Google GsTFO, we lose android, gmail, google office, google drive and google maps. That's a win-win-win-win-win-lose (in the short term, win-win-win-win-win-win in the longer term) situation for Australia. Well worth it, let's make it happen.
That's the US' self inflicted problem, not Australia's.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 24 2021, @05:48AM (3 children)
I guess you're a big fan of Apple? With Apple having a monopoly on phones in Australia, you can expect some really ridiculous prices. But I'm OK with that; if that's what Australia wants, who am I to tell them they're wrong?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday January 24 2021, @09:21PM (2 children)
No, they're right down in the gutter next to google and microsoft.
Or, depending on budget, one of these:
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/pureos-mobile/ [puri.sm]
https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ [pine64.org]
https://tadesite.com/best-non-smartphone/ [tadesite.com]
(not the result of serious searching, just three random DDG results).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 25 2021, @12:17AM (1 child)
I have a hard time seeing the population of Australia all switching to PureOS phones.
As for non-smartphones, what exactly is the purpose of those? What do you do with them? I almost never (voice-only) talk on the phone; that's what video chat is for. Voice service is mostly only good for receiving spam calls. The entire reason I have a smartphone is to do things, away from my main computer, that I can't do on an old-fashioned dumbphone: texting, chat apps, social apps, some games, web browsing, managing my calendar, GPS navigation (probably the most important function really), etc. I would have no idea what to do with a flip-phone at this point, and wouldn't see much point in having one if it came down to a choice of either having that, or no phone service at all. If things got to that point somehow, I'd just look for a way of leaving the country and going to someplace that has modern civilization and isn't stuck in the 1980s.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday January 25 2021, @10:16PM
To make and receive phone calls.
Phone calls and reading (side loaded) books are all I use mine for.
Something I avoid like the plague on an untrustworthy device.
I belive our worldviews differ.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 24 2021, @12:54AM
FTFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:11AM (1 child)
Corporations that have 100% of control of communications and data. Who would have ever expected they would put their interests above freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, the welfare of people and even entire countries.
Fxck globalization & Fxck corporate multinationalism. So many people knew it would be a disaster when it began to get a foothold in the 1980's but the shxthead politicians and world leaders never listened. Why would they, they made a killing off it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2021, @07:51PM
Sorry, capitalism is here to stay.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Saturday January 23 2021, @08:36PM
Hardly.
I'm no fan of Google, but they have a damned good point. They are a search engine. Showing the headline and linking to the article, where it is hosted by the newspaper ostensibly, is not something that should be requiring Google to pay for it. They should shut the fuck up and be grateful for the traffic. It should be the other way around, Google charging Australian media to show up in search results. Google doesn't do that, and offers a free search engine instead.
The answer is simple. Google will stop offering a free search engine in Australia, and create a sign-up page to show up in the search results. Media can get a Google account, and just like Google Adwords, post all their headlines and links and pay for the traffic to their web portals. Anybody wanting to show up in Google search results in Australia needs to pay for it.
Which will be fucking hilarious, because nobody else around the world will pay to have anything listed in Google search for Australians. Getting Lucky will take on a new meaning; Is there even one search result?
As for other search providers, they are not nearly big enough and able to handle those logistics, so they will exit the market too.
It's not strong arming when you refuse to pay the extortion fees.
Now, in all other ways, I hate really fucking hate Google. As in, they need to have their flesh repeatedly burned off, grown back, burned off. They need to have somebody go Medieval on their asses :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday January 23 2021, @01:25AM (1 child)
do you think the French might want French news, and the Australians might want Australian news?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @02:43AM
It depends. The worse things become within a country, the more its government blows up foreign news to distract the populace from their being robbed. An advanced field case is Russia, but France seems firmly on its way to same final destination, with Australia not too far behind.