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Comment by dheera | Hacker News Reader

Australians won't need alternative search engines.

Google can just withdraw their business presence from Australia but continue to provide search.

If after that Australia wants to block Google like China that's on them.

I'm not sure what exactly that would entail, but Google has quite big offices in Sydney and elsewhere. Google Maps came out of Sydney, and I believe a lot of its development still happens there.

Oh sure, it would impact them for sure. Just saying that if they do pull out of Australia, they don't need to stop serving Google Search to Australians. They can just serve it out of a foreign IP address just like Baidu would be for Australians to access.

If they served it out of Singapore or some other place in the region speeds would still be decent.

Simply withdrawing their business presence from Australia would not necessarily remove their liability or remove them from the jurisdiction of Australian courts. The lack of a business presence is not always a shield against long-arm jurisdiction.

Yes but could they do anything? As you said, the lack of a business presence in China was not a shield, and the consequence is that China just blocked them.

Australia would be more than welcome to do the same.

(But hee hee, we secretly know their citizens would protest if they set up a national firewall.)

How exactly do you think Australia is going to enforce this mandate if Google has no presence in Australia. Are they going to have the military invade California?

We have treaties addressing issues like these, and generally it is an accepted principle of international law that a country can regulate a company that chooses to business with its citizens.

But Google would not be doing business with Australian citizens. It would be serving them webpages, but it would not take nor give them any money. That said, I'm skeptical that such treaties exist. Would you like to point a specific instance of such a treaty out?

"Serving them webpages" is a business activity under international law. The consideration is the ads they show alongside search results.

As for resources on such treaties, visit the OECD website and you'll be inundated with the model treaties that form the basis of the actual treaties between countries. (Some treaties involve many parties, most are between two nations.) Since you're not paying me, I will simply point out that under America's tax treaty with Australia, the Technical Explanation would note that providing services to another country's citizens is an activity covered by the treaty, and Australia's tax office has plenty of documentation saying the same.

Would above mean Google stop serving ads in Australia? Clearly it's still in Google interest to serve them from afar but there must be some legalities about that. Previously Adwords for Australia was "run" and billed from Singapore for the tax benefits and they were pressured to end this.

And a plethora of marketing businesses will go batshit on the government if they force Adwords out of Australia. Adwords is a huge part of the industry. We're going to see this sector struggle for a while if they need to re-adjust.

I don't see why they can't serve ads in Australia for other businesses that are based outside Australia but do business in Australia and might want to serve ads to residents there, e.g. Coca-Cola or whatever.

All financial transactions would take place outside Australia, Google wouldn't need a legal entity there.

Exactly. Depart Australia entirely, serve Australians from a foreign IP address, still charge Australian businesses for ads & G-Suite but in USD (comparable rates using card conversion) further devaluing the Australian dollar.

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