Australia Hits Back At Google, Facebook: It's "Inevitable" You'll Soon Pay For Hosting Australian News
Australia Hits Back At Google, Facebook: It's
"Inevitable" You'll Soon Pay For Hosting Australian News
BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY, JAN 24, 2021 - 23:00
Neither side is backing down after weeks of standoff between the
Australian government and Google over proposed legislation aimed
at better compensating and rewarding local news publishers, while
bringing greater transparency to the way algorithms employed by Google,
Facebook, and YouTube work.
Canberra is now finalizing the bill which will
require Google to obtained licenses for all content published by Australian
news companies. Google's parent company Alphabet
Inc. oversees an estimated at least 94% of all search
traffic in Australia, similar to many other countries globally, at a time it's
coming under increased accusations of using its monopoly power to bully content
providers and smaller competitors.
Australia's Federal Treasurer and deputy leader of the Liberal
Party Josh Frydenberg said on Sunday that it's "inevitable"
that the Silicon Valley tech giants will be paying to use and present
Australian content on their platforms and in search engines.
"My view is that it is inevitable that the digital giants
will be paying for original content," Frydenberg said just
two days after Google threatened to pull its search engine from Australia
altogether. This as Canberra is now reportedly finalizing the controversial legislation.
"It seems that digital giants did themselves a big
disservice last week when they very openly and publicly threatened the
Australian public with pulling out of Australia effectively with search if
legislation proceeds as it currently stands,” Frydenberg added.
He further posed the question of humbling Google and Facebook's
unrivaled and "extraordinary
power":
"My
view is that it is inevitable that the digital giants will be paying for
original content and the choice for Australia, is: Are we world leaders… and first off the rank
when it comes to putting in place such a code? Or we can follow others further
down the track when they do it.”
Google precisely wants to avoid the precedent of regulators
backed by an influential government winning this fight. No doubt many more
governments, especially in Europe, would follow.
On Friday at a Senate hearing on the matter Google Australia
Managing Director Mel Silva told lawmakers, "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."
Facebook is involved too:
On Friday, the pair escalated the dispute by
threatening to remove the Google search engine from Australia and Facebook to remove
news from the Facebook feeds of all Australian users.
The threats follow the revelation that Google has been experimenting with
hiding some Australian news sites from search results, in a move media outlets
said was a show of "extraordinary power".
Days ago Bloomberg cited tech
analyst Johan Lidberg, an associate professor at Melbourne’s Monash University,
who pointed out, "It’s about control and
power."
He added that Google is seeking to make an example in
Australia: "They’re signaling to other regulators they’ll have a
fight on their hands if they do this."
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