[HN Gopher] Australia's PM suggests Bing adequate if Google bloc...
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Australia's PM suggests Bing adequate if Google blocks searches
Author : lazycrazyowl
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-02-02 11:36 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gizmodo.com.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gizmodo.com.au)
| progre wrote:
| I've been using https://www.runnaroo.com/ on some of my devices
| for a while and I very seldom need to do the DDG equivalent of
| !g.
|
| The name alone seems like something that Australians might like.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| Is there anything that makes the following sequence of events
| unlikely?
|
| 1. google.com.au redirects to google.com
|
| 2. google.com stops indexing australian content
|
| 3. australians barely notice, except perhaps for the latency
|
| 4. australian content creators collapse
|
| edit: 5. american content creators adapt and cater to their new
| audiences
| filoleg wrote:
| My guess would be that Australian regulators could consider it
| as Google trying to play a loophole around their rules, so
| Google could be forced to exit the Australian market
| altogether.
|
| Though I, personally, doubt it will get to that. Either Google
| will come to a satisfactory solution that won't piss off the
| Australian regulators or pre-emptively exit the market
| rsstack wrote:
| People want local news and content, because they have lives
| outside of the Internet and they want to consume (at least
| partially) content that relates to their lives. How would
| American content creators create Australian local content
| without operating in Australia, and fall under Australian
| regulative protections?
| bryan_w wrote:
| I think it's Google's position that the vast majority of
| people who go to Google's website don't actually go there to
| see the news. Hence why they're willing to remove news from
| search results all together. The regulation trys to prevent
| that, which is why they will have to remove their servers
| from AU.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| I don't think many of them would be truly devestated by
| having to move outside of Australia to continue making
| content about Australia. The layer of abstraction might be
| good for them mentally
|
| Being within Australia for "left-wing" creators like
| "FriendlyJordies" or "Juice Media" seem to be just a way to
| attract the Eye of Sauron from the right-wing media pundits
| and websites like "Junkee" that are heavily sponsored by
| large banks and fossil fuel companies
| doublejay1999 wrote:
| ""Are you confident that alternate search engines are going to be
| able to fill a massive void left by Google and Australians won't
| be left worse off?""
|
| this is what a planted question looks like :-)
| wokwokwok wrote:
| > When I spoke to Satya the other day, there was a bit of that,"
| Morrison said while rubbing his hands together and referring to
| Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
|
| I'll bet there is.
|
| Nothing like an incompetent governor willing to give you the keys
| to the castle if you bend knee and kiss a$$ for a few days first.
|
| There's probably a reasonable case for other players to get a
| piece of a pie that is pretty much entirely owned by google here,
| and they'd be stupid not to take it, especially as it positions
| them to challenge google in more lucrative markets in the future.
|
| To be fair, this sucks for Australians and Australian businesses,
| and they'll suffer for it; but, it is what it is. You speak with
| your votes; if you vote a$$ hats into power, don't complain when
| they do this kind of stuff.
|
| You reap what you sow.
| quink wrote:
| > You speak with your votes; if you vote a$$ hats into power,
| don't complain when they do this kind of stuff.
|
| I think it's gone beyond that, the electorate is a captive
| audience and we're in a democratic death spiral. Like just
| today again with Palmer and $75,000 for The Nats or Costello in
| charge of Nine or the ABC backtracking on Invasion Day - all
| without me even mentioning Newscorp. There's no hope of an
| informed electorate or a healthy media policy. The states need
| to step in as the only other authority left and tell the
| government that its already super shaky interpretation of
| section 51(v) has gone too far, it has usurped power from the
| real authority, and take it to the High Court if need be.
|
| Like happened in Germany in 1961 with their section 73(7).
| ageofwant wrote:
| Struth. The Libs are fundamentally dependent on the
| electorate being swayed by the constant anti-labor pro Lib
| background noise. And it may sway only 3% to the right, but
| that's enough. 10 minutes of Friendly Jordies, 60% of which
| is bullshit gags contains more journalism than a full Sunday
| paper.
| quink wrote:
| Deputy Leader for 131/2 years of the party in power, then
| make him chairman of the second largest media organisation
| in the country for 5 years now.
|
| Yet somehow the problem isn't with said organisation or
| party but that Google lists things published by said media
| organisation without paying? You couldn't weave a dumber
| more on the nose basketcase if you tried.
| shard972 wrote:
| please refame from flamewar.... oh wait its a lefty
| chr1 wrote:
| If they block google for real, it may be a good opportunity
| for something like https://voteflux.org/ to take off. Because
| many unhappy people trying to tell the government why exactly
| they are unhappy is a perfect situation to promote
| direct/liquid democracy.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Like happened in Germany in 1961 with their section 73(7).
|
| Could you elaborate on this analogy please?
| quink wrote:
| It's not an analogy, it's pretty much the same thing:
|
| Basic Law of Germany, Article 73:
|
| > The Federation shall have exclusive power to legislate
| with respect to [...] 7. postal and telecommunication
| services
|
| Constitution of Australia, Article 51:
|
| > The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have
| power to make laws for the peace, order, and good
| government of the Commonwealth with respect to: [...] (v)
| postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services;
|
| The Federal Republic of Germany wanted to start a TV
| network to compete with the public regional broadcasters
| created under the oversight of the allies and tenuously
| linked to the states. The states sued in 1961 in the
| Constitutional Court, saying that regulation of
| broadcasting and the media wasn't granted to the federal
| government by the constitution (or than technical standards
| and communications infrastructure where applicable) and
| they won.
|
| In Australia a similar court case was brought in 1965 by a
| private person and the judges, at least some presumably
| born before Australia was even a country, stretching the
| powers too far and basically assuming that YouTube or
| Netflix or even video tapes would never exist ruled in what
| the Federal Law Review called a "failure by the majority
| judges to justify their decisions on a basis of logic or
| experience" http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/FedLa
| wRw/1965/5.ht... Which leads me to think that if this were
| re-litigated in today's age by the states it may well yield
| a different outcome.
|
| Also note how the wording in the Australian constitution is
| actually a bit more restrictive on top of all of that.
| nailer wrote:
| Why will it suck? Google would be pulling Search not their
| other products. Google Search isn't that much better, and
| sometimes worse, than competitors.
| thu2111 wrote:
| As someone who has had their default search engine set to
| DuckDuckGo for the past couple of years, I'm afraid I have to
| disagree (DDG is mostly Bing). Google search results are
| objectively much better to the extent that if it weren't for
| the !g trick to redirect a DDG search to Google I wouldn't
| use it at all. Sometimes I even find myself adding !g to a
| search before even seeing the DDG results at all because I
| have already developed an intuition that they will suck.
|
| For better or worse, Google started with search and is still
| by far the best at it. Its competitors are sometimes
| acceptable in comparison, sometimes not. I can't think of any
| searches where they're actually better _except_ in cases
| where I just don 't trust Google to offer trustworthy results
| due to the political activism of their staff (which is why I
| now default to DDG despite having worked for Google for a
| long time).
| qazxcvbnmlp wrote:
| As an American I low key hope they block Google. I don't want to
| give up my use but wouldn't mind some extra competition in the
| search engine space.
| el_dev_hell wrote:
| As an Australian engineer, I low key hope the same.
|
| However, I'll be sticking with a VPN and google for technical
| related searches (Bing/DDG can't compete with Google,
| unfortunately).
| oilbagz wrote:
| As can be seen throughout its history, reflected in the nature of
| its seriously heinous press and Australians' love of outright
| propaganda over truth, Australians have never prioritized the
| development of a free and open society - so this should come as
| no surprise.
|
| The only hope is that there are a generation of Australians who
| still understand why a free press and a free market are essential
| to open society - and that they will rise to the challenge of
| building a really viable, open Australian society.
|
| However, given the predilection for shiny things and smashed
| avocado's, we might have to wait a generation or two, to see
| these heroes arise. Lets hope these future Australians' don't
| have to suffer the same fate as the Taiwanese or the Uigyurs in
| the quest for freedom ...
| adamjb wrote:
| "Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people
| who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and,
| although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders
| (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that
| surround them that they are often taken by surprise"
| Prcmaker wrote:
| I genuinely do not understand this 'smashed avocado' thing. I
| get told I love them once every few months, and was recently
| told I wouldn't get a home loan because of them. I've never had
| one, yet it seems to be a derisive term that has appeared out
| of nowhere.
| oilbagz wrote:
| This is the nation that watched the Great Barrier Reef die
| right before its eyes, for the sake of avocado fields
| stretching across the horizon .. The 'smashed avocado' meme
| reflects Australians' disinterest in managing their unique,
| valued ecosystem for the sake of such creature comforts.
|
| And really, as an Australian, you should be aware that there
| are too many examples of this attitude throughout our culture
| for it to be dismissed as a trivial meme. Its a highly
| effective one, because it reflects the truth - we'd rather
| 'have ours' and feel on par with our peers(^WAmerican
| Cousins) than protect our amazing environment.
| Prcmaker wrote:
| Do you have any more information regarding the great
| barrier reef and avocado fields? I haven't heard about a
| link there.
|
| I'm also not sure I follow some other parts. 'Smashed
| avocado' is used derisively for young people squandering
| income, but those same young people typically have stronger
| environmental mindedness than older generations. Teenagers
| were derided by parliamentarians for protesting/striking
| against inaction on climate change.
|
| I am an informed and (I believe) conscientious Australian,
| but I do not see why we cannot strive for a happy and
| comfortable life while keeping a great environment.
| BigJono wrote:
| Every few months the media here runs some bullshit story
| about some complete fuckwit that built their millions from
| nothing, assuming of course your definition of 'nothing' is a
| million dollar interest free loan from the bank of mum and
| dad every time you want to have a ping at whatever dumb arse
| business idea pops into your head, and maybe a couple of $1M+
| homes to get their real estate portfolio started for good
| measure.
|
| IIRC one of said fuckwits started crapping on in the media
| about how he didn't spend $20 a morning on smashed avos for
| brekkie, and as you can imagine people got a bit shitty with
| that and ran with it.
| Prcmaker wrote:
| I still need to convince my bank to let me back date a loan
| to 1980 and buy some land. I'm sure that would be a big
| help.
| XorNot wrote:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/millennials#avocado-.
| ..
|
| A millionaire got on 60 minutes and decided to dispense some
| sagely advice to everyone who didn't inherit their wealth and
| their first business.
|
| EDIT: Though wait, that was in 2017!? I could swear it had
| been around longer then that...
| Prcmaker wrote:
| Wicked, thanks. It is the exact kind of nonsense I had
| pieced it together to be. A reverse 'okay boomer', if you
| will, but where you don't get accused of being ageist for
| saying it.
| nness wrote:
| "You're only poor because you choose to be poor"
| Prcmaker wrote:
| Yeah, that works, thanks. As a previously homeless person,
| those arguments don't tend to inspire me.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Australians' lives are too cushy for most of them to care a
| whit about political news nevermind any attempt at reading
| between the lines or applying reason and logic to why a
| politician or party may be leaning in a particular direction.
|
| Tax cuts = political victory
|
| Border protection = political victory
|
| Increased surveillance (wrapped up in "anti terrorism" labels)
| = political victory
|
| Australia's political situation is going to get a fair bit
| worse before it gets better.
|
| This Google / Facebook thing is the Government shilling for
| News Corp, but you just don't hear that angle anywhere near as
| much as you hear "Google threatens to..."
|
| It's all obvious, given the existing power structures, but it's
| disappointing that Australian politicians are acting so
| predictably grubbily.
|
| Google need to be taken to task for tax avoidance, but that's a
| big, complicated issue that might take long enough that the
| next Government gets the credit so, you know, let's half-arse
| something this term and see if that gets us some free love.
| robin21 wrote:
| > Australians have never prioritized the development of a free
| and open society
|
| I think they are in a better state compared to the US and most
| of the world.
|
| Do you have examples of countries that are better are being
| free and open than Australia?
|
| The key to being free and open is not putting up with
| corruption, not having too much of an ideological divide, and
| good investigative journalism that people care about.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| See section entitled "Witness K Trial"[0]
|
| [0]:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Collaery
| oilbagz wrote:
| See also East Timor, and Australia's secret CIA-run torture
| camps.
|
| EDIT: downvote all you want, but Australia's totalitarian
| bent is very clear in these incidents.
| danmur wrote:
| That's pretty interesting, thank you.
| robin21 wrote:
| Thanks - interesting read.
|
| It sure is a but troubling, but I think unfortunately
| countries are spying on each other all the time. NSA spied
| on G20/G8 in 2010 that we know of - and nothing really came
| of it either.
|
| There aren't really any enforceable laws against spying on
| other countries either. But there are laws regarding
| leaking intelligence.
|
| It's a very dangerous game dealing with intelligence
| services of any kind.
|
| In a situation like this, it would have been best to
| whistleblow anonymously, and also notify the government
| that is being spied on - then it's up to them to secure
| their shit.
|
| But to attempt to embarrass a countries intelligence
| services and seek some kind of penalty against them is
| really a dead-end game.
| oilbagz wrote:
| >The key to being free and open is not putting up with
| corruption, not having too much of an ideological divide, and
| good investigative journalism that people care about.
|
| I do not agree with this position at all.
|
| The people can be easily manipulated into caring about only
| things the government allows them to care about - as is seen
| in the case of Australia's recent war crimes, for example,
| where the warrior culture has effectively suppressed any
| legitimate discussion of Australia's involvement in
| committing crimes against humanity with its ADF - who,
| incidentally, do not answer to the Australian people, but
| rather their sovereign - and she can do whatever she wants
| without oversight.
|
| >Ideological divide?
|
| The very _definition_ of a free society is the allowance for,
| encouragement of, and accomadation for, ideological divides.
| Who gets to determine 'too much'?
| ucosty wrote:
| With all due respect the notion that the Queen of the
| United Kingdom somehow rules over the ADF is nonsense. The
| Australian constitution places the Governor General in
| charge of the ADF [https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/
| Senate/Powers_practi...], who by convention defers their
| powers to the Minister for Defence.
| mickotron wrote:
| Yes, the governer general is the "commander in chief",
| and the governer general is the queen's power proxy, so
| technically Lizzy is the head of the armed forces,
| despite polite conventions.
| oilbagz wrote:
| She's also the Queen of Australia, and in that capacity
| she can declare secret anything she wants to declare.
|
| The Australian Parliament needs _permission_ from the
| Governor General to investigate the ADF - it doesn 't
| have that oversight by default.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| myle wrote:
| Is Bing going to be forced to operate under the same constrains
| as Google?
| meibo wrote:
| No, at the moment, the law explicitly only mentions "Google"
| and "Facebook". That should tell you a lot about the people
| that lobbied/wrote it.
| criddell wrote:
| > That should tell you a lot about the people that
| lobbied/wrote it.
|
| It doesn't really. Care to elaborate?
| graeme wrote:
| It means they aren't thinking from first principles about
| how linking should work and instead have passed a bill of
| attainder targeting a specific organization.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| That is not what a bill of attainder is.
|
| A bill of attainder is "a legislative act that singles
| out an individual or group _for punishment without a
| trial_. " Legislation that singles out an individual or
| group for other purposes is _not_ a bill of attainder.
| adtac wrote:
| wtf I've never seen a law mention corporations specifically
| Tehdasi wrote:
| In one of the states of Australia, there is a law that
| mentions someone by name:
| http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/bill/cab2014300/
| Was done as a stopgap just to make sure that it was
| impossible for him to leave jail.
| rafaelturk wrote:
| Can you share more details? Source? This kind of wording is
| alone unconstitutional in many countries.
| shakna wrote:
| > This kind of wording is alone unconstitutional in many
| countries.
|
| Australia's legal system is Common Law, inherited from
| Britain. You won't find any kind of enshrinement of rights
| in our constitution. It doesn't work that way.
|
| > Can you share more details? Source?
|
| You can find the proposed bill here [0]. It doesn't name
| Facebook and Google specifically, but says that is up to
| the Minister to designate "digital platform services" that
| it applies to. Part of which is:
|
| > In making the determination, the Minister must consider
| whether there is a significant bargaining power imbalance
| between Australian news businesses and the group comprised
| of the corporation and all of its related bodies corporate.
|
| Which just so happens to be one of the key findings of a
| report in 2018 [1] by the ACCC, which may have kicked off
| Parliament's slow gravitation towards this terrible idea of
| a law:
|
| > The ACCC is further considering a recommendation for a
| specific code of practice for digital platforms' data
| collection to better inform consumers and improve their
| bargaining power.
|
| In that report, only Facebook and Google are named, and in
| the presentation of this law as a good thing, ministers
| have only named Facebook and Google.
|
| [0] https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/dis
| play....
|
| [1] https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-releases-
| prelimin...
| graeme wrote:
| According to this the Australian High Court bills of
| attainder are unconstitutional. Meaning not within the
| powers granted to the federal government, as those are
| judicial powers instead.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder
|
| (Note that I'm not saying this proposed law is
| unconstitutional or a bill of attainder. Haven't examined
| it.)
| gamblor956 wrote:
| I don't know why you keep bringing up this "bill of
| attainder" nonsense.
|
| A bill of attainder is "a legislative act that singles
| out an individual or group _for punishment without a
| trial_. " Legislation that singles out an individual or
| group for other purposes is _not_ a bill of attainder.
|
| This bill singles out Facebook and Google, but it does
| not subject them to criminal punishment. It is therefore,
| _by definition_ under common law tradition (and also
| under U.S. law), _not a bill of attainder._
| morei wrote:
| The code is not a bill of attainder. Note that there are
| existing codes for other industries that operate along
| the same lines as the proposed code . e.g. The Telecom
| Industry Ombudsman operates via a code. The (non-
| government!) TIO has the government granted right to
| impose costs onto those companies that are deemed
| 'telecoms operators'.
| RL_Quine wrote:
| Australia doesn't meaningfully have a constitution, it's
| just a declaration of powers of the various governments.
|
| https://australianpolitics.com/constitution/text
|
| Before you downvote, take a read yourself. This isn't
| sarcasm.
| RL_Quine wrote:
| I'll concede that people are mentioned in it, my original
| comment wasn't completely correct. "In
| reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth,
| or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth,
| aboriginal natives shall not be counted."
|
| Not really a statement of rights so much as a statement
| that the native people of Australia are not people.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| For completeness it must be noted that that was repealed
| by referendum in 1967: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sect
| ion_127_of_the_Constitutio.... (The related Section 25
| remains, however.)
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| The fact that it is newsworthy to say something like this seems
| to indicate that Google is at least a de-facto monopoly in the
| search sector. It seems hard to argue against that when folks
| cannot even agree if there are any viable alternatives at all....
| This is a huge problem that is only getting worse. I don't really
| see any way to fix this outside of government trust-busting. (But
| I have little faith in the bumbling of modern politicians in
| Australia or anywhere else...)
|
| Personally, I use DuckDuckGo for searching and find the
| experience to be better than Google, but YMMV.
| chr1 wrote:
| That's not really a good indicator of monopoly. If the roles of
| Bing and Google were reversed here, the story would have been
| even more newsworthy.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| When is the last time you saw someone (who was not using a
| Microsoft browser) use Bing search? I am not saying there are
| no Bing fans at all, but I have never met one....
|
| Not sure I understand how it would be a big deal if the PM
| suggested that Aussies could live without Bing....
| chr1 wrote:
| I am not saying that many people use Bing. I am saying that
| this kind of intervention would be a big story either way,
| because there would be people rightfully complaining that
| the government actions supports monopolists position.
| graeme wrote:
| How can google be a monopoly if it is that easy to switch away?
| The truth is competing search engines are at least 90% as good
| as google, and literally a click away.
|
| People don't, and there is some browser default lock in, but
| it's hardly like an electric grid, water or broadband monopoly.
| Or Standard Oil for that matter.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| I mean, on one hand I agree with you (I found it pretty easy
| to not use Google Search). But I think my point is that if
| this was true for everyone, then we would not really be
| newsworthy that the PM thinks people can use Bing instead....
|
| One technical aspect to consider is the number of
| devices/applications where Google is the default search. Does
| Australia have a plan to force a different default if Google
| shuts off Search? How would that affect contracts that Google
| has with other companies (e.g. Apple) to make its Search
| default?
|
| Not everyone is technically literate enough to know how to
| change their browser's default search engine. Heck, some
| people don't know there are other ways to search the internet
| besides google.com....
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I assume smartphone companies have an incentive to just
| switch, given that I don't think Apple et al want to leave
| their users without a search engine by default. They'll
| probably just switch over to Bing as well.
| wpasc wrote:
| I think newsworthiness is a poor proxy for relevance or
| legal standing.
| mayankkaizen wrote:
| Other options are available and are good enough BUT people
| aren't using those other options. I mean an average guy
| doesn't even know about DDG and some educated guys do know
| about Bing but don't bother to use it. In real world, Google
| is synonymous with search.
|
| I don't have the data available right now but I believe more
| than 70% Aussies are using Google. That is _almost_ a
| monopoly.
| filoleg wrote:
| >Other options are available and are good enough BUT people
| aren't using those other option
|
| People choosing to not use other options that are easily
| available doesn't seem like something that should qualify
| Google as a monopoly that needs to be broken up (am not a
| lawyer, just a disclaimer).
|
| Like, what is Google supposed to do here? Make their own
| search engine worse, so that users are incentivized to
| switch? Show people ads, recommending them to use competing
| search engines?
|
| Mind you, I am not alleging that Google is not a monopoly
| or that it shouldn't be broken up. There could be other
| things that could qualify them for that, like bundling of
| Google Search as the default search engine with Chrome,
| semi-mandatory nature of Play Store on android just to be
| able to use google apps, etc.
|
| However, just the sheer fact alone that most people prefer
| to use Google search (when there are plenty of easily
| available alternatives out there that the general public
| isn't willing to look into) shouldn't be valid grounds for
| an anti-monopoly lawsuit.
| roenxi wrote:
| I personally agree with you. I also note Google is better at
| search than the Australian PM - I'd rather not have the
| Australian parliament forming an opinion on the order of my
| search results.
|
| However, the monopoly argument would probably be that they
| are using their superior search engine to hinder competitors
| in other markets - eg, pushing Chrome/Gmail/Android.
| monadic3 wrote:
| > The truth is competing search engines are at least 90% as
| good as google, and literally a click away.
|
| They're also 90% as bad; they aren't so much competitors as
| wholesale clones.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Google being so good no one can replace them is good.
|
| If Google abused that position so no one could replace them
| because they're no longer the best but still big, that's a
| problem. We're not there yet
| 8note wrote:
| I think search is important enough that countries should
| consider it of strategic value to in house.
|
| Australia outsourcing it to American companies leaves them
| open to media control by foreign governments
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I'm quite sympathetic to your point of view. I'd love to
| see governments ensuring a plurality of media is available
| and higher quality, factual, pieces are promoted.
|
| Sadly this isn't that. This would further entrench the
| murdoch empire that's a blight on most English speaking
| countries' media econ systems.
| bllguo wrote:
| yes, the terminology is getting distorted too much.
| monopolies are not illegal. the problem is if they are
| maintained by anticompetitive behavior
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I think people are upset about social issues (wealth
| inequality, changing social structures etc).
|
| I think that becomes anger at big institutions, from
| government to banks to "big tech".
|
| I think people see Anti Trust as a way to bash big tech.
|
| And no one stops to think "what are we actually trying to
| achieve here?". They just think something has to be done
| and this is something...
| rsstack wrote:
| Google Search is so good because it has access to exclusive
| data it collected in an immaterial way (not through search
| queries or crawling). Anyone can write a search engine, no
| one can write a search engine that's based on Google data.
| And no one can collect data similar to Google data, because
| this "Google has better quality so we have to use them"
| argument is also being used in a dozen other verticals.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| They're free to do what Google did: spend billions on eb
| crawlers, offer extensive free services like Gmail and
| chrome and build their own datasets.
|
| Plus, it doesn't really matter: it's not a problem for
| someone to offer a good service. It's a problem for them to
| offer a bad one and then force it on people because they're
| big.
| rsstack wrote:
| Yeah, that's pretty much how monopolies (anti-competitive
| companies) work: you could replicate the entire Google
| ecosystem, but without doing all of that you can't
| compete with any segment of Google. It is not reasonable
| to require of any competitor in the search engine field
| to offer their own ad network, mail service, cloud
| service, cloud computing service, enterprise offering.
| This is illegal, as hopefully the anti-trust lawsuit will
| show. It's a smart business practice, but once you cross
| a certain threshold it is regulated by the government
| because it is no longer good for society.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I agree about barriers to entry helping Google maintain
| their monopoly. We disagree about whether monopolies
| themselves are illegal as you say.
|
| From the wiki page laying out the US law in this (feel
| free to correct me if Aussie law differs?):
|
| >The courts have interpreted this to mean that monopoly
| is not unlawful per se, but only if acquired through
| prohibited conduct.
|
| >When enterprises are not under public ownership, and
| where regulation does not foreclose the application of
| antitrust law, two requirements must be shown for the
| offense of monopolization. First, the alleged monopolist
| must possess sufficient power in an accurately defined
| market for its products or services. Second, the
| monopolist must have used its power in a prohibited way.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
|
| I don't think Google meets the second requirement. I
| believe we agree it meets the first?
| rsstack wrote:
| Reading right after the end of your quote: "... Second,
| the monopolist must have used its power in a prohibited
| way. The categories of prohibited conduct are not closed,
| and are contested in theory. Historically they have been
| held to include exclusive dealing, price discrimination,
| refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying
| and predatory pricing."
|
| Unfortunately for the prosecutors, the big tech companies
| have abused their power in ways that couldn't have
| existed in the past, so they will have to set precedents
| in these anti-trust cases - but the law does allow for
| prosecutors to claim that Google's behavior is abusive by
| the _spirit_ of the law. I hope they do a good job,
| because we'll need these precedents for the next few
| decades.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| That's a fair response. Would you mind speculating on
| what Google are doing that breaks the spirit of the law
| and what new categories of prohibited conduct we might
| look forwards to?
|
| I think there is something of a reckoning coming for FB,
| Google, Twitter etc around fake news. But I'd imagine
| that's a separate issue to antitrust.
| pmontra wrote:
| I've been using DDG for the last few months. It's okish but
| sometimes I feel like I don't see the results I expect to find,
| I google them on Google (do you see what I'm doing? there is a
| reason for that after all) and I find them.
|
| This is even more true for technical searches in my job (web
| development, mostly backend.) Google finds the answer, DDG less
| often so.
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| but the !g does make it easy to get Google results when
| needed.
| lights0123 wrote:
| Which would be unavailable if Google didn't provide search
| in your area.
| kiwidrew wrote:
| I use DDG as my default search engine, and find that the
| results are usually pretty decent. But there's no question
| that Google has a larger and more comprehensive index,
| especially for more obscure "long tail" queries. So I still
| fall back to a Google search (it's easy -- just add '!g' to
| your DDG query and resubmit) about 10% of the time.
|
| It wouldn't be the end of the world if I wasn't able (or
| willing) to use Google.
| lordnacho wrote:
| How does this new law work? If Google doesn't want to pay media
| for content, couldn't they just not have newspaper links in their
| search results? Why would they have to pull out of all the other
| things that people search for?
| nailer wrote:
| Excellent question, particularly because the aricle merely
| states:
|
| > that would force tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay
| media companies for their content.
|
| What's they're omitting: the rule forces Google and Facebook to
| include big media sites.
|
| Always be wary of the media reporting on the media.
| Isinlor wrote:
| Because the law would explicitly forbid them to provide
| services if they do not agree to forced negotiations.
|
| Pretty much "Our way or the highway" and seems like Google my
| by preferring the highway.
| flukus wrote:
| They're forced to include newspaper links and to disclose their
| algorithm.
|
| The whole thing is a boondoggle for Rupert Murdoch, even our
| government funded media is excluded.
| JonoW wrote:
| Not sure if anyone's the same, but I find Google search the least
| sticky of their services, i.e. I could manage fine if forced to
| use Bing (probably not as good, but probably good enough), but I
| would really struggle if Gmail or Google photos access was axed
| in my region.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| I'm the opposite - search is the only Google service I use
| (apart from occasionally recce-ing bike rides on Street View).
| I've tried to wean myself off it, and have succeeded for casual
| browsing on mobile, but for programming queries I don't find
| Bing or DDG anywhere near as good.
| lui8906 wrote:
| You could use DDG and then add "!g" at the beginning for your
| programming queries.
| RL_Quine wrote:
| Right, which is what everybody does, and then develops a
| reflex for !g on every query because DDG really doesn't
| work well for any sort of technical query.
| antman wrote:
| As an avid reader of dystopian SciFi even I think this is too
| much.
| mc32 wrote:
| While this has been playing out a while in Australia and
| elsewhere, I think anyone who presupposed non-partisanship and
| openness by large social networks and other conduits of
| information knows after the Twitter, FB, YT and others' hamfisted
| approaches to setting narratives dispelled that notion and gave
| reason to every government to review the influence these players
| have on the respective constituencies.
| pjfin123 wrote:
| Interesting explainer I saw by an Australian economics YouTuber
| (opposed to the new law):
|
| https://youtu.be/zj2r948rUkQ
| markpapadakis wrote:
| This is quite ridiculous. I'd say it's obviously ridiculous but
| others may have a different point of view. The government there
| is eager to side with Murdoch and his friends for favorable
| coverage so that they can pocket money from this extortion stunt
| while disregarding the impact to its many many citizens.
| Suggesting Bing is good enough is stupid because if their
| citizens were to use it over google if google quits that market,
| what then ? Government goes after them and if it does what if
| Microsoft also gets out? And if government doesn't then doesn't
| that show to the world that it was personal with google? People
| shouldn't be stupid. It's a low bar to clear.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| Bing has indicated it would be willing make government deals in
| exchange for eliminating the competition and being #1 in
| search.
| nness wrote:
| I can't imagine Microsoft is anymore interested in paying these
| fees than Google or Facebook is. I think it's an empty threat,
| and likely its the Government trying to prove their serious
| (although, I suspect it won't pass its next vote). What Microsoft
| gets out of it, not sure.
| justaguy88 wrote:
| I suspect that Microsoft _would_ be willing to pay those fees.
| A first world country that doesn't use Google Search would be a
| huge win for Microsoft
| danmur wrote:
| I think he's just saying Google isn't the game in town. Having
| said that the whole situation is deplorable, it's not driven by
| valid concerns, just the Murdoch media in league with our weak
| government. I wish they'd picked a battle I could get behind.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Paying these fees to get Googles search traffic would probably
| be a steal, they need data to be competitive with Googles
| search
| bobcostas55 wrote:
| >I can't imagine Microsoft is anymore interested in paying
| these fees than Google or Facebook is.
|
| AFAICT the law is targeted at Google and Facebook only,
| Microsoft would not have to pay.
| junipertea wrote:
| This seems discriminatory as hell.
| ElectricMind wrote:
| Finally someone standing against tech giants. I don't think it is
| unfair to expect companies to follow law of the land irrespective
| of size. Big tech giants should not expect "US style" operation
| everywhere. America is not entire world, just one country.
| comodore_ wrote:
| That's a reasonable request, however, companies should not be
| forced to operate in areas where such laws exist that are
| incompatible with their business model. Or even force them to
| continue operating should the laws change. If the conditions
| don't fit their expected "operation style" anymore, they should
| be free to cease operations. In the end, I think, this will
| only hurt news sites and businesses that rely on google's
| services.
| fogihujy wrote:
| Absolutely! Australia is quite within their rights when asking
| tech giants to follow local regulations when they aim services
| at Australian citizens.
|
| That doesn't automatically make this particular law less dumb,
| though.
| ElectricMind wrote:
| If they think law is dumb or unfair or anything, they can
| negotiate with Australian government. But they should not
| expect favors just because of they have monopoly in the
| field. Again, Australian people will decide what good for
| them.
| rurounijones wrote:
| > If they think law is dumb or unfair or anything, they can
| negotiate with Australian government
|
| Or they can just cut off service to that marketplace and
| let the electorate take up the matter with their elected
| officials...
| pm wrote:
| I'm Australian and I'd rather not be the battleground for
| this particular brawl. Our Government is incompetent and
| corrupt beyond measure, and takes its orders from the likes
| of Newscorp. Google and Facebook are better dealt with in
| the US.
| petre wrote:
| I'll always remember Turnbull's laws of math come second
| to the laws of oz comment, heh. The last few of your
| prime ministers are much like Donald Trump. Science
| deniers that claim all sorts of nonsense. Crypto
| crusaders. Now this. How can a party have so many people
| like him and still win the elections? Aren't you fed up
| of having your country ran by these people?
| tedk-42 wrote:
| What's dumb about the law now? Did America not break up
| Standard Oil when it got too large and it's reach too
| powerful?
|
| Aussie here. I don't side with Google and I certainly don't
| like our government. But at least we elected this government.
| Google is using its position of dominance as a threat and
| will deplatform their search to us.
|
| To me that sounds more strange than the government wanting a
| bit of profit sharing from Google to other media outlets.
| fogihujy wrote:
| > What's dumb about the law now?
|
| There's a few threads about this law on HN already and
| there's no reason to repeat those arguments again and
| again. Regardless, my point isn't that the law seem poorly
| written ; it's that Australia is well within it's rights to
| regulate it's own internal market regardless of what people
| on the other side of the Globe think about it.
| anotherevan wrote:
| Here's the full bill if you want to wade into it (PDF): [1]
|
| This [2] may provide some helpful commentary.
|
| From Google/Facebook's viewpoint, one of the more distasteful
| aspects which is rarely mentioned in most coverage is that they
| must give two weeks notice of algorithm changes to registered
| news businesses.
|
| There's a perception in some circles that this is a fairly
| unnuanced money grab by the government on behalf of Murdoch
| media[3]. A perception that was not helped by earlier drafts
| excluding the public Australian Broadcasting Corporation and SBS
| from the trough. Two organisations the current federal government
| is seen as being hostile towards.
|
| As I understand it:
|
| - The bill would not allow Google to simply drop Australian news
| sites from search results (hello Spain News!), hence really only
| leaving the option to block Oz altogether.
|
| - There is no acknowledgement at all of the value search engines
| provide to media organisations by the links provided.
|
| - The forced arbitration conditions are quite... forceful. (I'm
| not really across this aspect.)
|
| A common nickname for our our Prime Minister among his detractors
| is "Scotty from Marketing" [4]
|
| In summary, when you say, "My way or the highway," perhaps you
| shouldn't get pissy when they choose the highway.
|
| [1]
| https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi...
|
| [2] https://www.gtlaw.com.au/insights/its-here-news-media-
| digita...
|
| [3] https://youtu.be/2BPLBIgKjN8
|
| [4] https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/01/where-the-legend-of-
| sc...
| canadianfella wrote:
| > I'm not really across this aspect
|
| What does this mean?
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > "Look, these are big technology companies. And what's important
| for Australia is that we set the rules that are important for our
| people," Morrison said.
|
| When Morrison says "our people", he means Rupert and Lachlan
| Murdoch.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-17/scott-morrison-murdoc...
| shash7 wrote:
| This is going to be a tough one. On one hand I absolutely hate
| how google is trying to strongarm this deal through their various
| properties. On the other hand, google pulling out of Australia
| will definitely impact a lot of businesses badly.
| graeme wrote:
| If the australian law applied to the web broadly, hacker news
| would have to pay for all the links.
|
| In reality, _being linked to_ on the web is extremely valuable.
| Google has had to ban the practices of sites _paying to be
| linked to_.
|
| The Australian law completely gets the value chain backwards,
| forcing tech companies to pay for a specific subset of links,
| and not allowing them to decline to link either.
| nness wrote:
| Its more of a case of Australia trying to strong-arm Google and
| Facebook to protect their News Corp interests (but I imagine
| that this is all a matter of perspective).
| waheoo wrote:
| Google has a bit of a problem here.
|
| The majority of Australians are pretty indifferent/apathetic
| here. Murdoch vs Google is Goliath vs Goliath, nobody cares who
| wins, everyone hopes they both get wrecked in the process.
|
| The best outcome here is if Google stops linking to news
| organisations in Australia.
|
| Zero fucks would be given and independent journalism would be
| able to grow in a healthy environment.
| RL_Quine wrote:
| Do they though? I want to see the Australian government crying
| to Google to return when they realize what they've brought upon
| themselves.
| Arnt wrote:
| Does this mean that Microsoft (or its Bing subsidiary?) will not
| have to pay the same tax, even if it becomes the dominatn search
| engine in Australia? Or is it not an issue, because the relevant
| subsidiary of Microsoft makes no profit, and therefore the amount
| due will be zero?
|
| I haven't a clue here, I'm just surprised.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| It means that the regulation itself isn't the issue but Google
| is just afraid that it destroys the idea that they cannot be
| regulated, and that other countries will follow suit.
|
| Obviously anyone would take the entire Australian search market
| for some rather mundane regulation. If someone came to you and
| said you can have an entire country worth of Google's market,
| you just have to fork over some money for news headlines you
| link to you'd say no?
|
| Microsoft in contrast to Google is a diversified firm that
| doesn't really rely on avoiding regulatory scrutiny that much,
| so they don't care.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I'm guessing we haven't talked to Microsoft at all yet, and
| that they will pull out of Australia as well.
| noicebrewery wrote:
| In the article Scott Morrison mentions that he's spoken
| personally to Satya.
| el_dev_hell wrote:
| Our PM claims to have spoken with Microsoft and they signaled
| a keen interest in coming onboard (the dodgy hand gesture
| made by the PM).
|
| https://apnews.com/article/business-satya-nadella-
| australia-...
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