Google warns consumers ACCC code will create a ‘dramatically worse Google Search and Youtube’
Google’s Australian MD, Mel Silva, has warned that the ACCC’s News Media Bargaining Code will force it to significantly decrease the value of its Search and Youtube platforms for Australians.
In an open letter posted this morning, Silva said the changes ‘could lead to [consumer] data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services [consumers] use at risk in Australia’.
Silva warns Australian consumers will be ‘hurt’ by ACCC code
Google complaining about other businesses gaining an unfair advantage – absolute hypocrisy.
The simple answer to this, de-list News Limited and anyone else complaining from the Google index.
Think we’ve had enough of Murdochs rag anyway.
The world would be better without their race baiting, climate change denial and interclass and intergenerational hate mongering
hear hear
why? Just why.
If Google is worried that just giving the data to news outlets will give them an unfair advantage over all other businesses and content creators . . . then why not make it publicly available to everyone? That would even the playing field, Google!
Is that a joke? Make everyone’s data publicly available? My god, pipe down
In google’s statement it never raises privacy as a concern, as data can be anonymised. Instead they have centred their protest around quality/fairness of results and maintaining free usage.
There are many alternative ways to fund the operation of the product, however the perception of quality/fairness doesn’t have options, because it’s against Google’s commercial interests to provide something that is actually fair. That’s of course not how they are going to package it up in an ‘open’ letter though.
Make everyone’s data public to everyone? Are you insane?
What an extraordinary reaction when a little bit of profit is at risk… true colours Google. Glad you’ve aired them for the world to see. Hope you’re punished for it.
Make no mistake about it. Google does good compared to the majority of businesses complaining. (Good at sharing all sides of the matter, good at educating, good at enabling us to find anything and everything.) These previously gigantic and prosperous media businesses haven’t innovated and put $’s first, not users / customers. Death throws come to mind. One last attempt to cling onto power. The reality is, the tipping point was a few years ago now. The old media companies need Google, not the other way around. There is protectionism and there is greed. Murdoch, Stokes et al, when it comes to media, appear to be on the ropes? Good riddance with their scare mongering and partisan stance. Our society will be better off without them.
To me the letter reads more like if we don’t give Google what they want they will actively go out of their way to erode the consumer experience on their platforms.
These traditional media business are yesterday’s monopolies. It took Google and Facebook to create competition. Now there is competition the ACCC wants to get rid of it to stop News Ltd from failibg. Seems the ACCC should be sanctioned themselves for being anticompetitive!
Absolutely agree. The dinosaurs had their time and so have the Murdoch’s. In this instance, its a welcome extinction.
Traditional media is not just News Ltd and Fairfax. They are major players that have been hit hard as have many smaller local publishers.
There was certainly more pluralism in yesterday’s monopolies. Today the information we get is pretty much based on how Google’s and Facebook’s algorithms have been tweaked, and delivered by a system that makes a ton of $$$ at scale because of automation and lack of regulation. Allowing the likes of Cambridge Analytica to influence millions through manipulation.
The issue here, though, is that most ad $$$ is now lining pockets of Google and Facebook. Publishers, big and small, are affected. jobs are lost. Voices are silenced and replaced by whatever is optimised best for SEO or the higher bidder on Google / Facebook Ads.
Sure, these dinosaurs should have adapted. Many have tried and many are still trying to figure it out. But it’s not easy to pivot completely… from a paid model to a free one. And publishers are forced to do this because it’s near-impossible to compete with free content that is often copied, regurgitated, etc… anyway.
So, shall we just accept that Google and Facebook remain monopolies controlling distribution and earning most of the $$$, becoming larger and larger as they roll out new free services to disrupt the next industry?
For me the scary thing is that this level of centralisation and consolidation is what you see in places like China.
You just gave the answer right there. News should not be free. Quality journalism has a price and the media companies need to invest in direct to consumer experiences and products.
i have respected google until this point. The whole reason for this legislation is to improve journalism and ensure a fair and balanced view & hopefully keep people in jobs and stop the focus on the trash that circulates on Facebook. There are big implications here. Google comes out with a biased statement taking no consideration of the bigger picture & only focuses on their own interests. And they have the hide to say they may have to charge for services because their profit might drop slightly from the $billions they make and they do not even pay reasonable tax in this country. What’s worse their staff are posting this on linked in where people will only suck up to their commentary. Are they expecting the public to protest in the streets. Deal with it with the Government and do not bring the public into it. There are slightly more important things to worry about at the moment.
Ben – does your view of the Australian media being ‘fair and balanced’ reflect today’s other lead story in the trade press that Australian news rooms lack diversity and are essentially white and male? It may be a long-bow of correlation – but the downward spiral of engagement of all Australian’s to their newspapers and TV news may have less to do with Google and Facebook and more to do with a product that is not reflective of a multi-cultural and diverse audience?
“…the downward spiral of engagement of all Australian’s to their newspapers and TV news may have less to do with Google and Facebook and more to do with a product that is not reflective of a multi-cultural and diverse audience”
I think these are very separate issues and both need to be addressed decisively. You may also find that the tech industry needs more diversity too – there are horror stories there too.
If the point is to improve journalism, why are large, low quality media organisations like news corp. etc. receiving preferential treatment over small/regional media organisations under $150k?
Your first statement i think sums up the big issue here. “. The whole reason for this legislation is to improve journalism and ensure a fair and balanced view & hopefully keep people in jobs and stop the focus on the trash that circulates on Facebook”.
Treating Google and Facebook separately based on what their services actually are would probably be a good start.
@Ben – so it’s ok for the News Publishers to deliver biased articles and misinformation about this issue under the guise of “Journalism”. But Google can’t publish their POV on the issue on their platform? It’s good to hear from them directly without being misrepresented and taken out of context by biased editors.
You’re correct their are much more important things the Gov and ACCC should be focusing on right now. How about job seeker? Or digitising our economy and Australian businesses to keep up with rest of world.
If this is about journalism the gov should increase funding for ABS and SBS. Seems to be a roundabout way of taxing tech to make News Corp their new national broadcaster.
In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
We need Google like a hole in the head.
Great to see the Commonwealth Government standing up to a multinational capitalise exploiter of the working class.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Question, if the govt. wants to improve the quality of journalism, by getting Google to pay for the right to drive traffic to that content… why is the ABC excluded from the legislation, and why is the govt. cutting funding to the ABC?
Looks alot more like helping out their mates at News Corp. to me.
Exactly, quality news and journalism that promotes diverse voices like the ABC and SBS are not able to benefit. The code is fundamentally flawed and designed to benefit the media duopoly. Anyone that bothered to read the fine print would know this.
“Google Australia’s latest financial accounts shows it paid almost $100 million in tax in 2019, which is far higher than previous years. But the tax paid on profits needs to be considered in the context that the company did not locally count $4.8 billion in gross revenue, mostly from advertising. Much of this revenue still gets booked offshore in Singapore, under “Google Asia Pacific”.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-18/google-pays-more-tax-but-still-makes-billions-in-singapore/12254448 the old profit shifting crap multinational companies pull all the time. Singapore enables this tax dodge with special sweetheart deals for big companies to pay 1% tax there instead of the Aussie rate. Thanks for nothing, Singapore! The government should tax way more of the billions in profit Google gets in Australia!
But this “news” fight has nothing to do with tax.
I think it’s extremely interesting that the “conservative” government is trying to slip this “socialist” regulation in behalf of their media mates (ABC and SBS get nothing) while people are distracted by other things. Anyone is able to choose other search engines but most choose Google because they get the results they are after quicker. Google will NEVER reveal the algorithms that achieve this, they understand the implications that they would go from spring chicken to plucked duck in no time!
I just noticed that Google has reverted from news.google.com.au to news.google.com effectively removing their news site from Australian jurisdiction anyway! Hahaha!
Ball’s back in your court Rupert! Are you going to block Googlebot? No, I didn’t think so. That’s because every webmaster wants their site to be indexed by Googlebot and have their site found and results are shown on the appropriate google search, whether its images, shopping, videos, maps, books, flights, finance, hey where is the NEWS tab?! GONE!
I see Google is not taking this lying down! High court, here we come!
What happens with the $ when Google and Facebook are made to cough up to protect the News and Nine so Scomo can earn reappointment by their mastheads at the next election? Does the code require these publishers to actually invest in journalism or is this really about advertising revenue lost because the old newspaper bundle economic model was destroyed by the internet? Is there any obligation to “save journalism” once the dollars are handed over?