I am seeing many comments on this site, reddit and youtube that seem to think what is bad for google is good for the internet and smaller search engines. This is not the case.
This law will not help smaller search engines because it is directed at all search engines not just google. I expect that providers like Ecosia and DDG will find it harder to survive with this law in place than google will (they have less negotiating power and less money for lawyers than google and bing).
This law was lobbied for by the two large news orgs in Australia. It is fairly likely that only (these) large news orgs will benefit because smaller orgs will have less negotiating power when in talks with search engines and will probably have trouble even entering talks.
Big tech needs taxation, regulation and its monopolies broken up. It does not need to subsidize news corporations that are finally loosing their influence because they have failed to adapt.
Why should you care?
Because the Murdoch’s own a global media empire and will do this everywhere they can get away with it.
Because this opens the door to the same laws being applied to smaller sites like lemmy.
Because instead of diminishing big tech’s power it will set up gate-keepers instead.
Tim Berners-Lee's opinion on the law
To the Senate Standing Committee on Economics,
I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief submission for the Committee’s consideration, as it conducts its inquiry into the proposed News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. I write in my capacity as the inventor of the World Wide Web, which I invented in 1989, first developing an information management system and then implementing the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol client and server via the internet. The World Wide Web is now accessed by more than half the world’s population, including an estimated 21 million Australians. My comments do not address the entirety of the proposed Code, but are limited to the area where my perspective is most relevant. Specifically, I am concerned that the Code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online. On the web, the sharing of content rests on the ability of users to do two things: to create content, typically text but also other media; and to make links in that content to other parts of the web. This is consistent with human discourse in general, in which there is a right, and often a duty, to make references. An academic paper is required to list references to other papers which are related. A journalist is normally required to refer to their sources. The discourse of bloggers involves links from one blog to another. The value of the blog is both in the text and in the carefully chosen links. Before search engines were effective on the web, following links from one page to another was the only way of finding material. Search engines make that process far more effective, but they can only do so by using the link structure of the web as their principal input. So links are fundamental to the web. As I understand it, the proposed code seeks to require selected digital platforms to have to negotiate and possibly pay to make links to news content from a particular group of news providers. Requiring a charge for a link on the web blocks an important aspect of the value of web content. To my knowledge, there is no current example of legally requiring payments for links to other content. The ability to link freely – meaning without limitations regarding the content of the linked site and without monetary fees – is fundamental to how the web operates, how it has flourished till present, and how it will continue to grow in decades to come. Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020Submission 46
Like many others, I support the right of publishers and content creators to be properly rewarded for their work. This is without doubt an issue that needs addressing, both in Australia and around the world. However, I firmly believe that constraints on the use of hypertext links are not the correct way to achieve this goal. It would undermine the fundamental principle of the ability to link freely on the web, and is inconsistent with how the web has been able to operate over the past three decades. If this precedent were followed elsewhere it could make the web unworkable around the world. I therefore respectfully urge the committee to remove this mechanism from the code. With many thanks for your kind consideration. Tim Berners-Lee
I feel there is some truth to what you are saying, however it is a question of measure.
Google is something like 16 times the size of Newscorp. Noone likes Murdoch, but you can’t compare his empire to Google.
Google apparently captures over 50% of the Australian advertising spent. Together with Facebook, they cover 80%.
Big Tech needs absolutely much more than this law. And so does Murdoch’s entreprise. But the last decades have gone so horribly wrong in this space that you shouldn’t expect the first step to be the ideal response.
If this takes Google search out of a G20 country, I’d say that it will have quite positive impacts for people everywhere as a precedent. Together with the recent Big Tech demonstration of political power in an unrelated area (taking the president off social networks), perhaps this can be part of mobilising people and governments to move away from the reliance on Silicon Valley’s infrastructure.
Quite clearly I’m overly optimistic in the above statement. However, if I’d have to imagine a realistic first step towards a solution to the problem of Big Tech, it might be something like this…
Don’t get me wrong, this is by no means sufficient, but it has to start somehow, no?
I am seeing many comments on this site, reddit and youtube that seem to think what is bad for google is good for the internet and smaller search engines. This is not the case.
This law will not help smaller search engines because it is directed at all search engines not just google. I expect that providers like Ecosia and DDG will find it harder to survive with this law in place than google will (they have less negotiating power and less money for lawyers than google and bing).
This law was lobbied for by the two large news orgs in Australia. It is fairly likely that only (these) large news orgs will benefit because smaller orgs will have less negotiating power when in talks with search engines and will probably have trouble even entering talks.
Big tech needs taxation, regulation and its monopolies broken up. It does not need to subsidize news corporations that are finally loosing their influence because they have failed to adapt.
Why should you care?
Tim Berners-Lee's opinion on the law
To the Senate Standing Committee on Economics,
I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief submission for the Committee’s consideration, as it conducts its inquiry into the proposed News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. I write in my capacity as the inventor of the World Wide Web, which I invented in 1989, first developing an information management system and then implementing the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol client and server via the internet. The World Wide Web is now accessed by more than half the world’s population, including an estimated 21 million Australians. My comments do not address the entirety of the proposed Code, but are limited to the area where my perspective is most relevant. Specifically, I am concerned that the Code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online. On the web, the sharing of content rests on the ability of users to do two things: to create content, typically text but also other media; and to make links in that content to other parts of the web. This is consistent with human discourse in general, in which there is a right, and often a duty, to make references. An academic paper is required to list references to other papers which are related. A journalist is normally required to refer to their sources. The discourse of bloggers involves links from one blog to another. The value of the blog is both in the text and in the carefully chosen links. Before search engines were effective on the web, following links from one page to another was the only way of finding material. Search engines make that process far more effective, but they can only do so by using the link structure of the web as their principal input. So links are fundamental to the web. As I understand it, the proposed code seeks to require selected digital platforms to have to negotiate and possibly pay to make links to news content from a particular group of news providers. Requiring a charge for a link on the web blocks an important aspect of the value of web content. To my knowledge, there is no current example of legally requiring payments for links to other content. The ability to link freely – meaning without limitations regarding the content of the linked site and without monetary fees – is fundamental to how the web operates, how it has flourished till present, and how it will continue to grow in decades to come. Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020Submission 46 Like many others, I support the right of publishers and content creators to be properly rewarded for their work. This is without doubt an issue that needs addressing, both in Australia and around the world. However, I firmly believe that constraints on the use of hypertext links are not the correct way to achieve this goal. It would undermine the fundamental principle of the ability to link freely on the web, and is inconsistent with how the web has been able to operate over the past three decades. If this precedent were followed elsewhere it could make the web unworkable around the world. I therefore respectfully urge the committee to remove this mechanism from the code. With many thanks for your kind consideration. Tim Berners-Lee
Here are some more links that go into more depth: bbc, guardian, The proposed law, channelnewsasia, The Verge
deleted by creator
I feel there is some truth to what you are saying, however it is a question of measure.
Google is something like 16 times the size of Newscorp. Noone likes Murdoch, but you can’t compare his empire to Google.
Google apparently captures over 50% of the Australian advertising spent. Together with Facebook, they cover 80%.
Big Tech needs absolutely much more than this law. And so does Murdoch’s entreprise. But the last decades have gone so horribly wrong in this space that you shouldn’t expect the first step to be the ideal response.
If this takes Google search out of a G20 country, I’d say that it will have quite positive impacts for people everywhere as a precedent. Together with the recent Big Tech demonstration of political power in an unrelated area (taking the president off social networks), perhaps this can be part of mobilising people and governments to move away from the reliance on Silicon Valley’s infrastructure.
Quite clearly I’m overly optimistic in the above statement. However, if I’d have to imagine a realistic first step towards a solution to the problem of Big Tech, it might be something like this…
Don’t get me wrong, this is by no means sufficient, but it has to start somehow, no?