The spat between Google and Australia, as reported on HN | Hacker News Reader

The spat between Google and Australia, as reported on HN

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29 pointsColinWright95 comments

As I see it, part of the problem is that Google no longer simply provides links to the content, it also provides substantial excerpts.

Based on my own infrequent use of Google (I use DDG by default) I'd guess that frequently people do the search, read the summary, and then never click through to the source.

Perhaps if the summaries were significantly shorter people would click through to the source, and then the source would get more traffic, hence more ad-revenue (or whatever).

So the problem, perhaps, isn't that Google is linking, it's that they are effectively copying, plagiarising[0], the original works.

[0] Added in edit: squiggleblaz[1] correctly notes[2] that it's not plagiarism, since Google is not passing off the words as their own. It's more accurately a form of fraud, or perhaps copyright infringement. Copyright laws allow for short snippets to be quoted as "fair use" (or similar) and so far the quoting by Google has been regarded as legitimate. Perhaps that needs to change.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=squiggleblaz

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870909

Seems like a lose lose situation for Google to me.

If the Aussies call their bluff, then 90% of the population will switch to Bing/ddg and will be fine.

More discerning Aussie searchers - like people googling for why their spring boot app won't work behind an nginx proxy - will just use a vpn to get to Google US - and they'll be fine too.

Google's dam will be broken open and the emperor's clothes will be left a little raggedy.

There's more at stake here for Google than Australia, and Aussies play hard and ruthless at the best of times (can confirm, am kiwi).

What if they take it further and also pull other google products like gmail, chrome, maps? That would cause some serious trouble.

That would likely be an antitrust suit waiting to happen

It's just a hypothetical I don't think it will come to it, but wondering why that would that lead to antitrust case? My knowledge of law is non-existent. I thought antitrust suits are because of getting into a monopoly position. Are you arguing that such an action would leave them open to claims of monopoly? Forfeiting services might be seen as a form of abuse, but isn't it sort of opposite of an antitrust by forfeiting your monopoly / strong market position?

You're leveraging your dominance in some sectors in order to gain advantage in another sector. That's what they got Microsoft for. Also can't imagine countries bowing down to these kinds of tactics anyway.

Deciding that it's no longer worthwhile to provide services to everyone in a country is not leveraging your dominance. It's giving up. They can't force Google to operate in Australia.

There are more countries in the world that believe the people should be in charge not venture capital.

Europe would close ranks pretty much immediately. As would New Zealand. Not so sure about UK though, but that's not a surprise to anyone, is it?

That's a terrible option for Google, because it's a clear statement that they see themselves as above national governments.

The large tech companies have been doing everything in their PR power for the last 30 years to pretend we aren't in the opening decades of a cyberpunk future.

Why break the kayfabe now, when they have the most to lose, and before their dominance is generationally cemented?

Won't the same regulations then apply to whatever search engine fills the gap though?

Not as yet. The law will apply to Facebook and Google, at least initially. A rational implementation would set a bar for market share or market capitalization before the laws kicked in.

In this case though, Google is doing something that’s very useful for consumers. I hate having to click through to websites that might be 90% advertisements.

Indeed. Why should I have to load a ten megabyte web page to access 500 bytes of text information?

I think a more fitting question is why should google showcase the ten megabyte page so far up the results. Perhaps because those ads that cause the bloat are likely served by them.

Because that 500 bytes of text have cost the publisher quite a lot to be written, and the other ten megabytes of ads and tracking code account for that. I hate advertisments as much as the next guy, but it's a little astonishing to me how people expect journalism to be free. Papers have to monetize their content somehow, otherwise they'd be unable to provide it.

So nationalize it! Isn’t that the HN solution to everything? ;)

You jest, but doesn't just about every country have a government-owned/government-funded news producing organisation? The ABC, the BBC, the CBC, the ARD, PBS etc. etc.

Many times that text was written by a random commenter though, and commenters are almost never paid.

These publishers pay very little for the content to be written. Vast majority these days is written by a low paid writer just out of college, not even a living wage. Real journalists have been let go. Newsrooms are mostly a depressing place to work these days, compared to 20 years ago.

Well, content production has a price.

I hate having to pay my groceries, should I stole it instead?

The root problem here being, again, that advertising-based business model is allowed to exist in the first place.

Are you seriously advocating banning advertising?

Not all, but most of it. Ideally anything that isn't "pull" and opt-in from the customer POV.

I summarized my justification here: http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html.

Most of the stuff in there doesn't even apply to Google. I think Google is just about the most "pull only" advertisement company I can name of the top of my head. Certainly compared to local companies here they're saints.

Also: you don't consider the need for new companies to get initial attraction for a new (or better/different version of X) product. How would you have that happen without advertising?

Google ads aren't really pull - they insert themselves into search query. You didn't ask for these ads to be there.

(A simple switch saying "include ads relevant to the query" would change this to "pull" mode in my books, as long as I could enable or disable it permanently for my session/account.)

Still, in context of this discussion, I meant to focus on the websites whose content Google reproduces in search results. These sites are the players that opted for an ad-funded business model, which is the source of this whole kerfuffle. Having an answer to my question being provided directly in response to query is a feature and great UX for me as a user. Websites want to restrict this not because they want to offer me value, but because they want to monetize my eyeballs. Sites with alternative business models wouldn't have a problem with Google reproducing content, and perhaps could reach an agreement in which they feed Google content on purpose, in exchange for some payment. Less websites and more data sources would be a good thing.

> Also: you don't consider the need for new companies to get initial attraction for a new (or better/different version of X) product. How would you have that happen without advertising?

Perhaps I need to update my article with some thoughts on that. The TL;DR: of my position on this topic is: if everyone shouts through megaphones at everyone else, you need your own megaphone to be heard. Take away everyone's megaphones, and maybe we can all have an actual conversation.

> (A simple switch saying "include ads relevant to the query" would change this to "pull" mode in my books, as long as I could enable or disable it permanently for my session/account.)

I must say, occasionally I do actually use an ad in Google search. They can be useful. Not that often, sure, but still. Not zero. They have something to do with what I'm trying to use Google for.

They're not random attention whore ads like, say, newspaper sites have. No big, moving, brightly colored "CONTEST! PARTICIPATE!" ad, none for getting a fitness subscription and no attempt to sell me wine.

But you're right that they aren't "pull" in an absolute sense. I guess I still think they were closer to "pull" ads than pretty much any other website I use. And if the whole web would do ads Google style, I'd be very happy and consider that a big improvement.

I agree with that entirely, but they are still using someone else's material to provide the service they are providing. As such they are using, without paying, someone else's work.

The service they provide may be very good, indeed, it is very good, but should they not pay for the materials on which it's based?

Publishing excerpts is a perfectly legal use of other people's copyright and does not require any sort of compensation (attribution is the only thing required and Google correctly provides that)

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fair-use-rule-copyri...

Basing one's entire business on quoting snippets from other people's work, wholesale, seems one of these cases that might be legal, but leaves a really bad taste in the mouth.

Is it legal? Maybe. Should it be legal? Is it ethical? Is it good for society? These are questions that people should ask.

Are you saying that Google shouldn't pay for the works they are quoting?

This action by the Australian Government seems to be based on the idea that what Google is doing is unfair, and so the law should be changed. Google is fighting against it because they say it's legal, and it shouldn't matter that they make a lot of money from it.

Copyright as a concept seems to be fair game on HN for many reasons. Maybe this is another place where it should be reformed. Maybe the amount taken from a single work is not the issue. Maybe what should be an infringement of copyright is having a "work" that is primarily taken from other works, even if only in small pieces.

I have no skin in this game, I have no axe to grind, but I do feel that the situation is unbalanced, unfair, possibly unethical, and needs to be reviewed and possibly changed.

I'm no Oracle ... I don't know what the right answer might be.

> This action by the Australian Government seems to be based on the idea that what Google is doing is unfair, and so the law should be changed. Google is fighting against it because they say it's legal, and it shouldn't matter that they make a lot of money from it.

It is not really the "Australian government" it is Rupert Murdoch, a billionaire, who controls the evening news and with that, elections. It is so blatant that the party that will need to vote this into law is actually divided on this issue. Think of it: the majority party that backs the government, their representatives, are considering this too blatant corruption to follow ranks. They are famous for forming a single front on everything by the way, which I guess is the point of forming a party, but this party is certainly more united than the others.

Rupert Murdoch even had the gall to exclude any news organisation he didn't own from these payments, most famously ABC, and of course he does also own several social media companies, who unlike Facebook, are not getting hit.

> Maybe the amount taken from a single work is not the issue. Maybe what should be an infringement of copyright is having a "work" that is primarily taken from other works, even if only in small pieces.

You're saying creating an index of material from multiple sources should be prohibited or subject to paying money to everyone included in the index?

The real reason news media are doing so bad is that people just don't care about news, never mind local news, like they did at this point almost 100 years ago. Combined with global news sources like the BBC far outstripping most "popular" (except not so much anymore) news in quality. Additionally, the BBC covers Australia pretty well. This is not just visible in website visits, otherwise measured views to the evening news, for example, have plummeted even deeper.

I would also worry, if I was Mr. Murdoch that if this legislation goes through, Google, Facebook, Youtube, ... all become direct enemies of news organisations. It won't be about competing for views anymore, Facebook and Youtube, Amazon and Twitter will be banding together to deny views to news organisations even where it damages their own views, their own bottom line. I have very little doubt who will win that contest.

Furthermore, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter have an incredibly privileged position when it comes to reporting local events, they could easily outperform any news media with machine learning because of the data being uploaded through them. They could stop having any links to the outside world at all.

Then Google should hire journalists to write it.

Those Silicon Valley boys, always trying to make money on the labour of others. Will they ever come up with a business plan that is not at heart slavery, theft or extortion?

Ten years ago Google News was excellent because it was easy to read multiple perspectives on a story by clicking multiple articles. I ended up visiting more news sites than I would have otherwise simply to get a better picture.

Nowadays it's much harder to get that comparison, and I avoid certain sites because I know they're paywalled, or because they present information in video form, which IMO is somewhat reader-hostile (you can't skim a video). So to the extent that your guess is correct, it is something that the news sites have brought upon themselves.

Did they bring it on themselves? Or where they forced to adapt to the loss of revenue? As you say it's harder to skim content behind a paywall or in a video, it's also harder to scrape it.

For every user like you that visited more sites because of Google News, there are likely plenty more who stopped visiting any sites because what Google News surfaced was all they felt they needed.

> As I see it, part of the problem is that Google no longer simply provides links to the content, it also provides substantial excerpts.

If the publishers were happy to be shown without a snippet, they could simply add a `nosnippet` meta tag or http header.

It's amazing how much robots.txt, nosnippet, and noindex are ignored in the reporting and comments about this topic. The controls are already there for Google to do whatever the news outlets want.

The anti-Google argument in this case should be along the lines that they force the news organizations into a prisoner's dilemma. They might be better off if none showed snippets but as long as some are they are better off showing them.

> whatever the news outlets want

They want to be shown in a prominent position on the search and be paid for the privilege. No possible change in result presentation will be satisfactory.

It's funny the way this is often framed outside of Australia as a government fighting back against monopolistic tech giants. This proposal is the result of lobbying by shrinking old media monopolies whose only option for increasing revenue is to take it from other sectors.

The most likely outcome is that Google will not withdraw from Australia but merely blacklist Australian media domains from search results. Google won't pull out of Australia because it earns substantial income (for an Australian business) and pays very little tax here.

> The most likely outcome is that Google will not withdraw from Australia but merely blacklist Australian media domains from search results.

That is not an option presently on the table. They can either withdraw Google Search from all news (hard, but maybe possible), or they can withdraw all of Google Search (easy), or they can participate (at the cost of their IP).

Note that "all news" does not mean "a few large news companies operating in Australia" or even "every news company operating in Australia", it means "all news", including CCTV, DW, NYT etc.

“The principle of unrestricted linking between websites is fundamental to search and coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk 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,” That's a big threat, but pretty risky if their bluff is called because I think that might reveal that other companies could fill the search need if google vacates the space.

edit: quote source https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/22/google-threate...

Do you think it is a bluff??

A free search engine operating under that law would have to have to be filled with allot more ads to recuperate the costs of showing links. Seams easier to just stop indexing Australian websites.

It's not a question of indexing Australian websites - be clear about this.

In Australia, they cannot provide a search facility that shows news - whether domestic or international - if they don't sign up to the code. So they cannot provide results from the NYT or Deutsche Welle in their search results that are accessible from Australia.

Why would a news paper in the us be classified as a newspaper in au?

We’re in the midst of a mass exodus from whatsapp to signal.

If google pulled out the same would occur.

This is a battle between monopolistic titans (google and news Corp). If google pulls out and news corp misses out on this new revenue source, I feel thats the best of both worlds.

We need fresh competition in search and news.

> We’re in the midst of a mass exodus from whatsapp to signal.

Don't you think this is just in the tech tech world? The only time I've heard a non tech person talk about signal, it was as "an app where you buy weed". :-/

Is be surprised if more than 1% of users hence left WhatsApp.

I've said this elsewhere[0], but as I see it Google no longer simply provides links to the content, it also provides substantial excerpts. In that way they are effectively copying the original works.

That's called Plagiarism[1].

I've said more in the longer comment[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870825

[1] Added in edit: squiggleblaz[2] correctly notes[3] that it's not plagiarism, since Google is not passing off the words as their own. It's more accurately a form of fraud, or perhaps copyright infringement. Copyright laws allow for short snippets to be quoted as "fair use" (or similar) and so far the quoting by Google has been regarded as legitimate. Perhaps that needs to change.

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=squiggleblaz

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870909

It's not plagiarism. Words have meanings. Plagiarism is when you take someone else's work and pass it off as your own (or an earlier work and pass it off as new); it as a form of fraud.

This is closer to copyright infringement, although so far it has been regarded as legitimate.

I've added to my comment ... thank you.

>Copyright laws allow for short snippets to be quoted as "fair use" (or similar) and so far the quoting by Google has been regarded as legitimate. Perhaps that needs to change

From my observations Google is trying to pull out the answer you are looking for so you don't have to visit the source website, seen it with Stack Overflow answers , or list of commands to run to do X, or sometimes it can understand questions like "how I do X" and finds the correct forum post and the answer with the steps recommended by users to run.

The end result is less people are visiting the original page, so it would be similar with Google just cloning the entire Web and all the pages you browse will be on Google servers.

I think you're missing that it's voluntary:

Other companies already do provide search tools. They're widely regarded as not being as good as Google's. Since other search companies are not covered by this code because they are not dominant, they will have an incentive to remain non-dominant, which implies that they will have an incentive to not significantly improve their algorithm.

Obviously leaving the market will not be great for Google, and staying in the market will not be great for Google. This is from their perspective an entirely crappy situation.

Moreover, the entire situation for Australian web users will be harmed by this.

But the fact of the matter is, the Australian government doesn't care about Australia web users, Australian businesses, or American web search companies. They do not care about free markets or equitable remuneration.

Their primary interest is in a certain American media company, because to get the American citizen who heads that American media company on your bad side means you lose government.

> Moreover, the entire situation for Australian web users will be harmed by this

How? There are other search engines to use. I don't use Google search. I haven't missed it.

Speaking as a DDG user, I "shell out" (!g) to Google multiple times a day because the results it offers are often hopeless.

> How? There are other search engines to use. I don't use Google search. I haven't missed it.

Well, I think there's a lot of disagreement about whether DDG or Bing are adequate. I use DDG most of the time, only rarely searching standard Google (tho often searching Google Scholar). If Google disappeared, I'd be fine; I'd simply get more precise with my searches.

The reason I claim it will harm Australian web users is because I have argued that it will motivate web search providers to make their product no more competitive than the market average. If their product is more attractive than anyone else's, then they risk becoming dominant and subject to the restriction. Consequently, the search engine space in Australia will always lag significantly compared to the space in other countries.

It's not the absence of Google Search that will harm Australia, it is the presence of a rule that makes exceptionalism costly.

What I don't get is why must Google Search completely shut down to fight this law. Can't they just stop crawling news sites that complain about revenue sharing?

They could go down that path. But the law prohibits linking to news in general, including international news that is unrelated to Australia. It is vague enough to likely include blog content as "news". Should Google accidentally link to something that is considered news, then that opens them up to serious fines.

It would require an incredibly intelligent algorithm to filter all of that kind of content out.

There’s the restrictions on serving any news that others have mentioned, but the proposed code also requires them to advise the media organizations of any change to their algorithm that could affect the media companies at least 14 days in advance of that change. For a company that doesn’t give anyone a heads-up about changes coming, let almone specifics of the change and how it might affect their property, that’s enormous.

Australians being Australians, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Google pulling out simply led to VPN subscriptions spiking.

It's been a while but Australia used to be in a position where Australians were hungry for US-made media (TV shows, movies) but only received it several days (TV) or weeks to months (movies) after their US release. Piracy was crazy rampant through this time. It wasn't just the tech-savvy folks doing it, even the elderly would know someone who could get them a DVD of some new movies for the kids.

So circumvention of idiotic geoblocks aren't anything new.

There is an entire, well-established SEO industry worth billions trying to get Google to index your content and feature it. News publishers are literally incentivising Google to do the opposite. It makes no sense. I really hope Google continues to call their bluff - they would be completely dead if not for Google traffic, and they surely know it.

How can that be a good thing? Why is google worth being paid for providing content they paid $0 to make?

SEO is not a good industry, it's the equivalent of government lobbying , but this time with a different overlord. The problem with google is not that it's a search engine, but that it has bought and guards every significant entry point to the web

Paying journalists to write stories, only to have Google "index" that content in such a way that your readers don't feel the need to visit your site and see your ads, is not a workable business model.

But (as you say), not letting Google index your stories at all reduces your traffic to the point where you can't make enough money to pay the journalist either.

It's a very tough call for the newspaper industry. The only way out that I can see is getting readers to pay for news. Unfortunately we've educated an entire generation that news is free. Going back from that is going to be difficult.

I guess the American multinational corporations could have negotiated between themselves to simplify what is shown. Instead of showing the headline and a snippet, it could have shown simply "Herald Sun, political report, 25/07/2020" or "The Age, opinion, 13/01/2021".

> they would be completely dead if not for Google traffic, and they surely know it.

It's worth pointing out that this is not the hidden secret that needs exposing, but the public motivation for this policy. The government is trying to present this as "tech monopolies are abusing kind producers of Australian news, and because the tech monopolies have such a strong hand, we must compel them into making agreements they otherwise would not have chosen".

That's why they've gone to such an extent to try and prevent the "well we just won't index you" loophole.

There's a lot, and much of it dates back a month or more. This most recent shot fired by Google about withdrawing from Australia is just the latest in an argument that's been brewing.

Nine months ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22917941 :

    Facebook, Google to be forced to share
    ad revenue with Australian media
    (theguardian.com)

Five months ago, https://news..com/item?id=24004754:

    Australia to make Google and
    Facebook pay for news content
    (apnews.com)

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24005109 :

    All news or no news for Google,
    Facebook under new code in Australia
    (mumbrella.com.au)

Google published an Open Letter, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24182494 :

    Google: Open Letter to Australians
    (about.google)

Then 44 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25349265 :

    Google and Facebook set for showdown
    with Australian publishers
    (abc.net.au)

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25355136 :

    Australia: Facebook, Google forced
    to pay for news content under new
    media laws (sbs.com.au)

Then 33 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25472707 :

    Google tells Australian Government it is
    considering withdrawing “completely”
    (theage.com.au)

Nine days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759014 :

    Google blocks Australian news
    in 'experiment' (afr.com)

Then 7 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25775985 :

    Australia calls out Google for
    “experiment” blocking some news
    sites (trust.org)

Also very relevant, ACCC’s response to Google’s open letter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24185374

(They basically said, “Google is engaging in a FUD campaign here, making various claims about the effects of the legislation, some of which are probably not true and some of which are flat-out lies”, only they said it slightly more politely—but only slightly, definitely more bluntly than is commonly the case in such things. I read much of the draft legislation and found that it exactly matched ACCC’s position expressed in that response, though small parts of Google’s position on the purpose of the legislation and what it may lead to were also reasonable.)

I haven't been following this too closely, so I'm hoping someone could bring me up to speed a little bit.

Do Google actually need to pull all of search in order to avoid paying news sources? Why wouldn't it be enough to remove Google News in Australia & deindex news websites?

Also, as I understand it, in order to comply with the regulation Google would need to negotiate a price with news sources. Couldn't they just reach agreement with just some news sources and deindex the others?

There’s a bit more to it than that.

In previous iterations of this fight in other countries Google either has to pay the local media organisations to link to their sites, or they might choose not to link to them, close Google News Australia, and pay no one.

The twist in Oz is that the government has stipulated that if Google doesn’t link to local media, then it cannot link to international media offering news, either. The choice given to Google is either you link news and pay Aussie firms, or you offer zero news at all.

This prevents Google from simply delisting local media and offering up alternative US, UK, Canadian, NZer sites that would - sensing new eyeballs - likely step up and cover Aussie news.

In addition, Google has to give the media companies 14 days advance warning of any change to their search algorithm that might impact the media organizations. In reality, that probably means giving this subset of corporations in Australia a heads-up on every algorithm change.

Hence, Google’s choice is less about 'list Aussie news and pay' or 'list no Aussie news’, it’s ‘list Aussie news and pay and share your search algorithm changes in advance of any change’ or ‘don’t offer search in Australia’.

Facebook (also concerned by the changes) has already said/threatened to stop sharing of news articles in Australia to align with the regulation. If Google also pulled back, I’m not sure the media companies would be so very happy.

It still seems to me that there might be other options.

What if Google News picked a small set of the more cooperative Australian publishers to work with?

In order to handle the algorithm side of things, what if they deindex news in the primary Google search and notified of changes in just the Google News algorithms? Do the regulations not allow these solutions in some way, or is this being dramatised?

I don't mean to favour the regulations in any way. I'm just a bit skeptical of "shut down search altogether" being something Google would seriously consider in response to this threat.

> What if Google News picked a small set of the more cooperative Australian publishers to work with?

It's a compulsory, arbitrated deal. They don't get to pick and choose. Indeed, we're told that Google's market might is precisely the justification for this code. They're said to be too big for media companies to obtain a fair deal, so they are obliged to participate with any media company that wants in.

> In order to handle the algorithm side of things, what if they deindex news in the primary Google search and notified of changes in just the Google News algorithms?

Something like this might be possible. Deindexing just news but permitting other searches certainly was floated as one of a few possibilities.

> Deindexing just news but permitting other searches certainly was floated as one of a few possibilities.

From what I've read, they're even running a 1% of users test for it. Certainly makes it seem as though they're being a bit misleading by threatening to pull search altogether.

> The choice given to Google is either you link news and pay Aussie firms, or you offer zero news at all.

Well then, bundle all news site indexing into a standalone Google News ( not available in .au ) product and declutter the standard search engine.

Everyone would benefit from cleaner search results and if they want to search trending news they'd just have to click the news tab.

I think it's not as simple as that.

What's classified as "News" ? A lab in japan, or Tesla having a press release on new battery tech ? A website update from USGS on the Kilauea eruption ? A new project on hackaday ?

Google probably does not want to be in a position where a creative lawyer hauls them into an AU court for imagined harm to the AU news companies losing out on opportunities to monetize.

It's a hard call, and I can believe it if they say it may be better to move entirely out of Australia. No presence whatsoever.

It was a hard call to determine how to deal with China as well, and I don't quite know where things stand there now. There's a long and contorted history.

A filtered view: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=last24h&page=0&prefix=true...

The point is that this isn't recent, it's been brewing for the better part of a year.

Frozen view: https://archive.is/0PIDt

Is there any reason to believe Google would intentionally disable the default search on all Android phones in Australia?

No. Don't be crazy ...

Australia is small in terms of inhabitants, far smaller than France, the rest of the EU, BRICS and other relevant markets. The business impact of shutting down search for Australia will be relatively small.

So Australia just volunteered to be Google's example for what will happen if you try to milk Google...

On the other hand, if Australia doesn't back down and Google goes through with their threat, when life doesn't end in Australia it will be a signal to other countries that Google likes to bully that there are search alternatives. Though not a big market, Google cutting off Australia likely will do much more harm to Google than it does to Australia.

Another thing to add here is that the reason Russia and China have their own popular search engines is because they've been largely cut off from Western alternatives.

If Australia is cut off this would encourage Australia to develop their own Google alterntaive which would probably be healthy for innovation and the tech sector in Australia. I guess they could always use DuckDuckGo or Bing, but as a European it would be great to see more Western countries developing their own alternatives to silicon valley tech. The fact Google thinks they can bully Australia like this is evidence that silicon valley has become too powerful and needs competetion.

There's an extensive directory of search engines here:

https://twitter.com/SearchEngineMap/lists

with several sublists of including search engine crawlers (6) and syndication search services (31)

Any alternative service will have the same quandary

Exactly. I think this gets missed in the ‘switch to Bing or DDG’ argument. If Google did leave and 90% of searches started being completed on Bing, Microsoft could be subject to the same regulation (subject to the Minister’s discretion). Stepping up to take over from Google in such a circumstance simply means taking on Google’s problem.

It also means potentially explosive market share growth. From Google's perspective it isn't that they can't pay, it's that they don't want to.

A competitor product such as DDG or Bing suddenly looking at pretty big market with no Google competition would say, yep, I'll pay you x% or x cents per result, the overall growth in my market share will make it worth it.

Except that if the competitor (Bing, DDG) fell under the same regulation, they can’t offer to pay anything and avoid the regulation. The media organizations make their claim (likely enormous, because they are not adapting to the new reality of online news) and it goes to arbitration and they get TOLD what to pay.

I’m pretty sure Google has offered to pay something to media organizations and to do deals with media organizations for their content - but they aren’t interested in an arbitration process that is going to stick them with a mùuch bigger bill, and they don’t want to change the business model they have where they index links and offer search results for free (well, for ad views…).

My understanding of the regulation is that it requires a good faith negotiation. Not Google/FB/DDG/Bing just paying what the media organisations demand. Google's posturing inherently indicates they aren't negotiating in good faith and are attempting to use their market power to pay less than what most would consider equitable (I have no figures at all or even ballpark so who knows what that actually is).

Arbitration is just that, arbitration. It doesn't mean media organisations say we demand x and that's what the settlement is. Both sides present their case to the arbitrator who decides on the price. If you're in DDG/Bing's position, you put your cards on the table and take the extra revenue from having a massive boost to market share.

It is highly unlikely an arbitrator would actually set the price at an unsustainable value. If it means the search engine is actively making a loss overall then of course they'll walk away. But for DDG/Bing, making a loss on news links may be worth it for the extra revenue in non news search. In reality it probably wouldn't even be a loss, just a much lower profit margin.

Obviously Google is going to try and pay as little as possible, any business would. The difference is market share and power dynamics. Google believe they are in the position that if they can't get the price they want they can walk away.

To the no. 2/3 player in the market it presents to a massive opportunity if google does walk away. According to the latest guardian article [1] on this, Google declared $134M in profit in Australia last year on $4.8B. That's a big incentive for player no 2/3 to pay some of that profit to the media organisations.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/22/google-threate...

[edit] fixed spelling/grammar

Not all of that revenue is search. When you add consider not all of that revenue is from Search, the cost of compliance (adding more to legal team and the toil of actually negotiating with all the other parties), much less actually paying for the links, they might see it as genuinely not worth it so it might not just be a case of punishment for Australia daring to regulate them. In that case, other search engines that pick up enough market share for the law to apply to them, which will probably much less profitable to begin with, will feel the same way.

You're right it won't all be search revenue. What I guess I'm trying to say in a nutshell is:

For a competitor, the overall boost in revenue due to a much higher all round use of their search engine is likely to offset the extra costs associated with serving news content.

I think it would take a while to go through the motions with a new contender, during which time the media orgs will continue to not collect and possibly lose money. Not so great for them. Also, these other providers are less wealthy and hence lucrative to bilk from.

That said, if were Bing / DDG, I would move very carefully...

"As you walk along the street A porcupine you meet How do you shake his hand when he says hi? Carefully ... carefully .... careful ... L-Y

Tom Lehrer"

Australia is a pretty wealthy nation (not saying France etc isn't) and I would argue that this wouldn't happen given how much money they make here, the offices they have, GCP etc.

That would be insanely self-destructive for Google.

Other similar countries such as New Zealand and Canada would start looking at the US-based Google and start to wonder if they should continue to be allowed to have such power over sovereign nations. More independent-minded nations such as France and Germany would almost certainly take preemptive action to protect themselves.

Not to mention that Google is trying to "sell-sell-sell" GCP and Google Workspace to not just Australian businesses, but Australian Government. Every pending deal would be instantly cancelled and every existing customer would migrate off Google in a hurry.

Google might lose billions of dollars of revenue to protect what? News? Nobody pays for that!

the system in France works well, Google pays, the others also, a certain margin for snippets, and a subvention to the press in general. they did not like it, but then accepted and it is good so. Australia want's to scream, and it's mostly political communication agains the bad big ones, no seriously working person can do today without google, it's just to perfect en efficient. for smll things you can use bing or yahoo, duck duck is bing also, so, very dumb australian position

Dare Australia actually ban Google? Does bing have any sort of agreement like they're seeking with google?

Can someone quote the actual rule that Australia is proposing? Does it affect all links? Would HN be affected?

"Platforms covered ...the Treasurer makes a determination specifying that the code would apply to them. The Government has announced that the code would initially apply only to Facebook and Google. Other digital platforms may be added to the code if they hold a significant bargaining power imbalance with Australian news media businesses in the future."

from here https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/draft-...

I'd think long and hard before I willingly supported News Corp too...

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