Google says to block search engine in Australia if forced to pay for news

[John Drake]

13 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Because mining interests have so little say in the present government? Your comment is ridiculous.

 

Standing up to China, aren't they?

[welovesundaysatspace]

2 hours ago, Thakkar said:

Ecoasia - browser cum search engine

In Bangkok we don’t need a cum search engine. 

[placeholder]

3 minutes ago, John Drake said:

 

Standing up to China, aren't they?

And that is the defining criterion for not truckling to corporate interests?

[John Drake]

Just now, placeholder said:

And that is the defining criterion for not truckling to corporate interests?

 

If the government did fold to China to placate miners, would you be happier. I do wonder if you have the slightest idea how much corporations dominate US governance? Remember, they are considered to be a "person" and have political standing, in contravention of all that seems sensible and rational.

[placeholder]

This thread is about Australia and not about how a right wing Suprene Court has greatly increased corporate power in the USA.

[hotchilli]

On 1/23/2021 at 7:54 AM, ezzra said:

Just look how Whatapp has folded like a cheap lawn chair when millions have abandon them and India PM told them to stop this nonsense as India has 500 million users...

Never used Whatsapp or FB... 

[mikebike]

23 hours ago, Thakkar said:

it’s a complicated situation.

news sites can actually block their content being searched by google so that google can’t profit off them. But then, since, for better or worse, google is so many people’s start page, the sites won’t get any traffic unless people go directly to them, which won’t be a lot. 
 

news sites were among the slowest to adapt to the new age, and they have paid a heavy price for that mistake. The public is also all the poorer. But news isn’t just any business. A well functioning democracy, not to mention the smooth running of capitalism, needs robust, independent, financially viable, and varied news media. 
 

while the news outlets need google more than google needs them, the fact is, the news outlets are struggling while google is making money hand over fist, and doing so partly because they have access to so much info produced by the news media. A listed company answerable to shareholders is not going to voluntarily give up some of that money to keep news orgs afloat, even if it (may)be in their long term interest. 
 

if governments don’t intervene to force some kind of compromise, we will all be poorer, even google.

I think if new outlets actually reported news with journalistic ethics and not the bottom-line feeding info-news-ertainment <deleted> they have been peddling for the last few decades, they would be in a more solid position business-wise.

[Pmbkk]

3 hours ago, Thakkar said:

I use several different browsers, each with a different default search engine, none of them google.

 

Still, I occasionally go direct to google for a particular search and find it to be the fastest and most intuitive, delivering the most relevant results right off the bat. I imagine how much *more* intuitive it would be if I used it regularly and it consequently knew more about me.

 

However, With search, I’d argue that less is more because the less perfect search engines inadvertently allow for serendipity. Like browsing at a large, less than perfectly organized bookstore; I find unexpected delights that I wouldn’t have using the oh so perfect google that would’ve promptly, unfailingly given me my answer and got me to just move on.

 

I encourage everyone to use google alternatives, and I encourage google to share some of their largess with the people who, by freely sharing their content, have helped google get to where they are. 

 

*btw, google clearly recognize the serendipity angle with their “I’m feeling lucky” button. But to me, it seems contrived.

Is this like walking into the dentist and asking him to pick a number and saying yes, that's the one I'll have pulled. I usually go in hoping to get what I wanted..

[John Drake]

12 minutes ago, placeholder said:

This thread is about Australia and not about how a right wing Suprene Court has greatly increased corporate power in the USA.

 

And you're wrong. It's about how Australia is responding to Google, an American company, and how the US, which is dominated by Big Tech, has responded by pressuring Australia to change its law. It's right there in the OP if you actually read it. 

Quote

The United States government this week asked Australia to scrap the proposed laws, which have broad political support, and suggested Australia should pursue a voluntary code instead.

 

[placeholder]

9 minutes ago, John Drake said:

 

And you're wrong. It's about how Australia is responding to Google, an American company, and how the US, which is dominated by Big Tech, has responded by pressuring Australia to change its law. It's right there in the OP if you actually read it. 

 

Actually it's about your claim that the Australian govt isn't dominated by corporate interests. Do you understand that Alphabet, Google's corporate parent, is not an Australian corporation? It wields little influence in Australia.

[John Drake]

1 minute ago, placeholder said:

Actually it's about your claim that the Australian govt isn't dominated by corporate interests. Do you understand that Alphabet, Google's corporate parent, is not an Australian corporation? It wields little influence in Australia.

 

My claim is that industrial interests in Australia are not even close dominating Australian policy in the way big corporations do in the US. The government in Australia seems willing to stand up to pressure from the outside. For now. And I compared it to the US, where corporations and their lobbyists write the legislation that the congress never actually reads but just votes on. Exhibit A: The recently passed Uighur Sanctions Act, which is a bipartisan bill already overwhelmingly adopted in the House but which Apple, Coke, and other Big Corps are now interfering to dilute and strip it of all effects before there is a Senate vote. 

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/business/economy/nike-coca-cola-xinjiang-forced-labor-bill.html

 

And on the particular issue of Google and Australia, as stated in the OP the US Government has already taken its marching orders and tried to get Australia to scrap their own laws. 

[placeholder]

6 minutes ago, John Drake said:

 

My claim is that industrial interests in Australia are not even close dominating Australian policy in the way big corporations do in the US. The government in Australia seems willing to stand up to pressure from the outside. For now. And I compared it to the US, where corporations and their lobbyists write the legislation that the congress never actually reads but just votes on. Exhibit A: The recently passed Uighur Sanctions Act, which is a bipartisan bill already overwhelmingly adopted in the House but which Apple, Coke, and other Big Corps are now interfering to dilute and strip it of all effects before there is a Senate vote. 

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/business/economy/nike-coca-cola-xinjiang-forced-labor-bill.html

 

And on the particular issue of Google and Australia, as stated in the OP the US Government has already taken its marching orders and tried to get Australia to scrap their own laws. 

And once again, your reply says nothing germane about the relation of the Australian govt's relation to Australian corporations.

[John Drake]

16 minutes ago, placeholder said:

And once again, your reply says nothing germane about the relation of the Australian govt's relation to Australian corporations.

Useless waste of time. 

[SePl]

people pretending that the don't use google really are funny liars...

 

[2530Ubon]

Google will never leave Oz. Why would they allow a competitor complete access to an entire country? If Oz could show that the world doesn't need Google, then other countries might follow their lead. Happened in China, but that's a special case.

 

It's about time the tech giants were knocked down a peg or two. Google controls 86.86% of the global market share and therefore 86.86% of all our data. That is a very dangerous thing to have.

 

Imagine if OZ starts using privacy browsers / privacy focused search engines and the world doesn't come crashing down? They stop getting bombarded by focused adverts and their data isn't available to be stolen by hackers, or bought and sold on to third parties?

[bob999999]

Google made $4.3 BILLION in Revenue from Australia last year - but paid only $50 million in tax.

This was admitted by the Aussie CEO (reluctantly) under threat of penalty when questioned in Parliament.

 

Finally, a Government is taking them on and is trying to hold them to account.

 

[Thakkar]

1 hour ago, Pmbkk said:

Is this like walking into the dentist and asking him to pick a number and saying yes, that's the one I'll have pulled. I usually go in hoping to get what I wanted..

that assumes you always know what you want, which isn’t always the case. We don’t know what we don’t know, and a little non exactness, a little fuzziness in search results can lead to a better understanding. Also, when a search engine doesn’t know you as intimately as google, some biases can be avoided by seeing results you wouldn’t otherwise see. 

[Salerno]

7 hours ago, GreasyFingers said:

Google Australian Broadcasting Commission and Google.

 

And find what? Please supply a link to Google banning the ABC, Google isn't being my friend on that.

[GreasyFingers]

3 hours ago, Salerno said:

 

And find what? Please supply a link to Google banning the ABC, Google isn't being my friend on that.

That is because they have banned the ABC. Tough world.

[Salerno]

1 minute ago, GreasyFingers said:

That is because they have banned the ABC. Tough world.

 

No, it's because you're making <deleted> up.

[GreasyFingers]

1 hour ago, Salerno said:

 

No, it's because you're making <deleted> up.

OK Thomas

[Salerno]

3 minutes ago, GreasyFingers said:

OK Thomas

 

I accept your confession of making <deleted> up, thanks.

[GreasyFingers]

2 minutes ago, Salerno said:

 

I accept your confession of making <deleted> up, thanks.

You need to read the Bible to understand my post.

[GreasyFingers]

9 minutes ago, Salerno said:

 

I accept your confession of making <deleted> up, thanks.

ABC News wasn't appearing on Google's search page

Posted Fri at 7:24am

ABC News wasn't appearing on Google's search page.

 

Understand Thomas.

[Pro1Expat]

11 hours ago, Thakkar said:

I use several different browsers, each with a different default search engine, none of them google.

 

Still, I occasionally go direct to google for a particular search and find it to be the fastest and most intuitive, delivering the most relevant results right off the bat. I imagine how much *more* intuitive it would be if I used it regularly and it consequently knew more about me.

 

However, With search, I’d argue that less is more because the less perfect search engines inadvertently allow for serendipity. Like browsing at a large, less than perfectly organized bookstore; I find unexpected delights that I wouldn’t have using the oh so perfect google that would’ve promptly, unfailingly given me my answer and got me to just move on.

 

I encourage everyone to use google alternatives, and I encourage google to share some of their largess with the people who, by freely sharing their content, have helped google get to where they are. 

 

*btw, google clearly recognize the serendipity angle with their “I’m feeling lucky” button. But to me, it seems contrived.

I agree totally with you. I use a couple of browsers namely Brave and Vivaldi. I get far more useful returns with these than with Google. They only give you what they support.

[stevenl]

22 minutes ago, Pro1Expat said:

I agree totally with you. I use a couple of browsers namely Brave and Vivaldi. I get far more useful returns with these than with Google. They only give you what they support.

Google is not a browser.

[tgw]

It's fascinating how all those laws and regulations are still being drawn up by people who obviously don't know much about how the internet works.

 

all the Australians needed to do was to set a fine for search engines not observing policies set by publishers themselves in their robots.txt or "no index" or "no follow" metatags or tags or sitemaps.

 

and in my experience, Google does follow indexing directives set for web content. So... why don't news publishers set their content to "no index" to make the content disappear from search engines?

 

 

 

[Pro1Expat]

2 hours ago, stevenl said:

Google is not a browser.

Google is many things it is a search engine which you use in a browser