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Comment by senttoschool | Hacker News Reader

Australia has had a thing against Google.

In Australia, News Corp (Rubert Murdoch) dominates the media landscape.[0] They have the power to dictate who wins elections and who loses. Thus, politicians bend to News Corp will.

One of the results of this dynamic is that politicians forced Google to start paying News Corp to show news links in Google News in Australia but not anywhere else in the world.[1]

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-14/fact-file-rupert-murd...

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/17/news-corp-agre...

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Interestingly, you're completely correct.

However, the animosity runs deeper than Americans may imagine.

News Corp Australia has built a ground up, from first principles, Ad Tech platform that competes directly with Google's.

The number of, and proportional penetration, of its publications are such they've the critical mass capable of flouting the Google Ads duopoly.

Fairly strong F500 equivalent engineering culture.

They've recently announced an incredulous financial performance for the legacy media section of their business.

It has to be said Rupert Murdoch funded the whole ad tech build with cable sports money. Murdoch will give up on his Australian newspapers the day hell snows over.

Still, the raw flow of ad dollars is quite remarkable.

Undercutting Google is an (relative to the woes of legacy media) immensely profitable business.

It might be a good thing that Australia actually has a competitor in the field which is otherwise dominated by US tech giants. Though one has to ask why Murdoch gave up Sky and 20th Century.

> Undercutting Google is an (relative to the woes of legacy media) immensely profitable business.

Well, Google is immensely profitable, so this is not very surprising.

What is interesting is that companies undercutting it are the exception, not the norm.

Whats more incredible is that inside Australia people genuinely think it's a good thing, because the Government is finally "taxing" Google... they actually believe the money is going to the Australian government (schools, hospitals and all that) and have no idea the money actually goes directly to Murdoch.

Even when I explain it with evidence, they still come back with things like "it's about time Google paid their fair share, they've been skipping taxes for too long".

It's utterly incredible what happens when you're on an island isolated from the world.

(NOTE: I've been out of Australia for ~20 years and only recently came back, so it's kind of a shock to only get media from the inside)

>(NOTE: I've been out of Australia for ~20 years and only recently came back, so it's kind of a shock to only get media from the inside)

Stupidest thing I've ever heard. There is no 'from the inside' in Australia, what media could you possibly have accessed before that you cannot now? Even more, what media external to Australia provides a better or more accurate insight about Australia than the Australian media?

Of course Murdoch's a prick, he always has been, he also does not have total control of the media in any way. To make a statement that implies there is some type of censorship or barrier between Aussies and access to the truth is a complete fabrication.

> Stupidest thing I've ever heard. There is no 'from the inside' in Australia, what media could you possibly have accessed before that you cannot now?

What I have found is that all the media in Australia, reporting about Australia, has a very specific tone and message that it's putting across.

I spent years around the world reading about Australia from outside Australia, and media in the rest of the world wasn't putting that message into the reporting.

If you have not, I suggest you leave for a good long while and see the place from the outside. It looks a lot different.

Feel free to illuminate us on what this 'message' is, preferably also provide some evidence that supports it's all encompassing nature. Until you do so it is simply a vague allusion that exists only to serve your narrative.

I find it unsurprising that any country 'looks a lot different' if you compare internal and external media, the question is accuracy and truthfulness. I ask again, please show me any external news source that is even remotely competitive in these areas with the Australian media.

You double down while answering none of my questions and still have not even explained HOW it 'looks different'.

By definition you are speaking https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nonsense

> Whats more incredible is that inside Australia people genuinely think it's a good thing, because the Government is finally "taxing" Google... they actually believe the money is going to the Australian government (schools, hospitals and all that) and have no idea the money actually goes directly to Murdoch.

Every media outlet was shouting loudly in favor of it, even the Guardian. Zero integrity when the rubber hit the road.

However, the last federal election was lost by the incumbent government, despite support for it by News Corp. That influence may be far greater over politicians themselves than over the electorate.

It's certainly true that Murdoch has an outsized influence in Australia, but I don't believe this particular incident is a case of Google versus Murdoch. I think this was a fairly clear case of Google violating Australia's very robust consumer protections. It's something Australia takes very seriously, and it's a big mistake to run afoul of the ACCC.

When it comes to Murdoch related things, I often think it’s likely to be both, since Google can violate the law and the ACCC entirely appropriate to punish them, and it can be profitable for the Murdoch family to tip the scales in order to make life harder for Google in Australia, so when something like this comes up it’s in their best interest to stoke the fire and make sure the public knows Google did something wrong, to encourage them to file the appropriate complaints, etc… and so what might have been a 25 million dollar problem for Google with $arbitrary ongoing compliance costs, becomes 50 million dollar problem with $arbitrary x 1.5 ongoing compliance costs.

Look at the past record of the ACCC. When their media code ultimately just resulted in Google and Facebook paying Murdoch and 9, the commissioner said that was his plan all along.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/03/17/alan-kohler-news-...

[Rod Sims] said last week: “It doesn’t matter a toss what the money is paid for.”

At an on-the-record Q&A event in Melbourne last week, Mr Sims said: “For reasons of their own, Google and Facebook strongly don’t want to pay for news on search and news feed. Fine. The news media companies don’t care what the money is for. So I just think it’s a perfect outcome.”

“But”, I followed up, “this does nothing to address the dominance of Google and Facebook”.

“This is one problem at a time”, Sims responded.

“The problem we’re addressing with the news media code is simply that we wanted to arrest the decline in money going to journalism. That’s what the code is about – getting more money into journalism, and I personally think the money going into Seven and Nine, what’s been publicly reported, which is north of $30 million, will make a big difference.”

When I pointed out that there is nothing in the code that makes the companies spend the money on journalism, rather than dividends or executive bonuses, he replied that “the world is watching what they do”.

Q: What's the difference between a thug who threatens to break in your windows unless you pay up and Rod Sims?

A: Rod Sims is paid three quarters of a million dollars a year by the taxpayer and has the gall to claim he's acting in the public interest.

We shouldn't assume the ACCC are acting in good faith in this case because we know they haven't historically, instead waging an ideological campaign against tech companies.

> Look at the past record of the ACCC.

What does that have to do with this case?

Are you seriously suggesting one shouldn't take an institution's history into account when looking at a case? Like if the KKK does something, we should completely ignore their history of racism in figuring out what happened? That's absurd.

ACCC hasn't taken any interest in privacy for decades. The first time they showed an interest was the very same digital platforms review in 2018 that also led to them extorting Google and Facebook to hand over cash to Murdoch. We don't even have decent privacy laws, so the ACCC have been quite open about using section 18 of the consumer law as a means to enforce privacy standards against tech companies (said section is a vague prohibition on misleading or deceptive conduct, which can be interpreted as broadly as the ACCC likes which means it can be easily weaponised against whomever).

Australia has very high levels of market concentration and the ACCC is widely derided for failing to ensure competition. This is not a competent regulator. Of course one of the most concentrated industries is the media, which also hates tech companies, so the seeming alliance between the ACCC and traditional media conglomerates is of interest when considering their crusade against big-tech.

Regulatory capture is a well-known phenomenon, and it's especially dangerous when the captured regulators destroy competing industries. A recent example being the FDA's attacks on e-cigarettes because they've long been partially captured by traditional tobacco companies.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2022/05/27/study-raises-questions-...

A month after that was published btw, Matt Holman, chief of the office of science in the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, left for Philip Morris, a competitor to Juul's owner. This is how things work, it's just harder to find out about when it comes to Australia because, again, we don't have a functioning press, thanks to the ACCC.

> Are you seriously suggesting one shouldn't take an institution's history into account when looking at a case? Like if the KKK does something, we should completely ignore their history of racism in figuring out what happened? That's absurd.

Only if that history has something to do with the case in hand. If KKK lynched a white man, for no racist reasons, why do you think that we should be discussing their racist history instead of the facts of this specific case? Don't you think that it is absurd to claim that the only motivation for KKK doing absolutely anything is racism?

Now, if KKK lynched a white man for marrying a black woman... well that would be a different story.

So, what is your "black woman" for the case that is on discussion here?

This isn't just lynching another black man, it's lynching the same black man. Google was the target in both cases. As such it's obviously pertinent to look at what motivated them go after Google the first time, which as I said is because they've been captured by traditional media interests.

Ah, so you are in fact claiming that KKK can only ever have one motive for doing anything. I find that quite absurd. Notice that with all the words that you have written here not one of them is about the actual case being discussed, wonder why that is.

I'm claiming the KKK only have one motive for lynching black men.

There's no media coverage on this case because we don't have a proper press thanks to the ACCC, but it's a ridiculous case on the face of it. I use location data covertly stolen from users who've installed various apps at work (we don't do anything nefarious with it but there's no reason someone couldn't). The ACCC doesn't care about privacy or consumer protections unless it involves big tech, as anyone familiar with its history can attest.

>Murdoch has an outsized influence in Australia

>Australia's very robust consumer protections. It's something Australia takes very seriously

Quite the irony here

Different systems at play, but I see what you're saying. The ACCC doesn't try to stop social influence.

First link shows NewsCorp domination (~65%) in Capitol City print mnedia, not so much elsewhere.

Second link is about the News Corp deal, but does mention that ALL Australian media will be compensated for "framing" by Google ("in google" summaries and snapshots of sites that don't generate traffic to actual site).

To be honest, this is a fair ask for kickback to actual content creators .. local journalism, etc.

It's not a fair ask, because Google were also not allowed to simply withdraw from displaying news. The whole thing was a shakedown. Initial drafts didn't include the public broadcaster ABC or SBS and only benefited the commercial entities.

> Initial drafts didn't include the public broadcaster ABC or SBS and only benefited the commercial entities.

What's the current state of play, can the ABC and SBS do deals with Google and Facebook to get a return on their content?

Why yes, yes they can.

Whatever Australia has against Google, there’s no question that Google completely lied about location tracking being buried in the “Web and App Activity” setting.

Washington DC, Washington state, Indiana, and Texas are suing Google for the exact same thing.

In this case, Google is guilty as sin.

> Australia has had a thing against Google.

Is there someone that doesn't?

Competition is good evidently

> have the power to dictate who wins elections

I hope you're kidding. That power has belonged exclusively to Facebook, Google, et. al. for at least the past 8 years.

Do you know anything about News Corp and Rupert Murdoch?

Sure, Dennis Potter named his tumor 'Rupert' - there's a damning indictment going back to Murdoch on Fleet Street.

I see a lot of complaints about this but find little information about what the actual problem is.

The abc link referenced mentions that Murdoch's reach through physical newspapers is indeed outsized, but acknowledges that only ~11% of the population uses this as primary news source. There is nothing indicating anything resembling a monopoly in radio, TV, and most importantly digital.

"The Australian" belongs to News Corp, but is generally considered a respectable outlet. Opinion pieces are clearly distinguishable, and they also welcome contributions by left wing politicians (Tanya Plibersek and Jim Chalmers are examples I remember seeing relatively recently).

> "The Australian" belongs to News Corp, but is generally considered a respectable outlet.

The Australian? Respectable? Nah, I don't think so.

They're right wing, obvious about it, and have had several outright false reports in the last few years. [0] They even run their own "Australian of the Year" award, with the same name as the actual award. Their editors call themselves right wing and conservative, and they've been accused by both the Greens and Labor of targeted harassment because of it.

[0] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-australian/

It is a conservative leaning news outlet. You may not agree with the view point but that does not imply that it is not respectable.

I think you took the wrong word for emphasis. The false reports, and bias that leads them to write hit pieces against any group of another leaning, is what decreases their respectability. Any media group that leans too far one way or the other, loses respectability, because they stop reporting news, and start reporting fantasy.

Unlike those left wing outlets that are nothing but beacons of honesty and decency, right?

Or is it ok to have nuance on the left but not the right?

Mediabiasfactcheck. Lol. Of course there are stringent guidelines as to what is specifically right wing, far-right wing, left wing and far-left wing... All this political tribalism is pathetic.

That is not correct for Australia. NewsCorp almost singlehandedly kept the liberal party in power for almost a decade. Their reign only recently is over thanks to Scott Morrison's stupidity and incompetence that was so great even NewsCorp couldn't cover his ass.

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