Will Google really turn off their search engine?

[Rruchi man]

In a news article just published here-

https://nypost.com/2021/01/22/google-threatens-to-block-search-engine-in-australiagoogle-threatens-to-shut-off-search-engine-in-australia-over-news-law/

The Australian government is considering signing into law a bill that will ensure and see that Google starts paying  for the local contents they display in their search engine. In your opinion, is this a reasonable move by the Australian government?
If Google accepts, does this not mean that other countries will follow suite and start demands to be settled as well?

[suchmoon]

I'm not familiar with the issue - is Google not respecting robots.txt settings? Otherwise the law seems quite idiotic.

[PrimeNumber7]

Facebook is also going to disable the ability of its users that reside in Australia to share news links.

The issue here is that news organizations have outsized negotiating power. If google and the news organization is unable to reach an agreement, the news organization is able to force Google to participate in binding arbitration to negotiate payment rates.

I think this will probably result in Google not being accessible within Australia, at least temporarily, without using a VPN.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Something similar happened in Spain in 2014. The Government wanted to charge Google for displaying local news using their news search engine and Google simply stopped offering that service there. Initially traffic of Spanish media sources went dows about 15%.

For many years, Spain was the only country in the world without google news service.

Just now it's working after they reached a deal recently.

[Mauser]

The Australian government is considering signing into law a bill that will ensure and see that Google starts paying  for the local contents they display in their search engine. In your opinion, is this a reasonable move by the Australian government?
If Google accepts, does this not mean that other countries will follow suite and start demands to be settled as well?

It might be a first step by a government to fight back against the big technology companies like Google. But to be honest it seems a bit unrealistic. Google is by far the number 1 search enginge world wirde and will likely remain on that place, if they would turn off their engine in Australia a lot of people would probably keep using it with a VPN. I am pretty sure they will arrange themself with the Australian government. Forcing big IT companies to include local content in their searche seems like a good move, but they might demand a lot of money for it.

[franky1]

google has for a long time now aggregated data for many sources for free. and they dont want to start paying for it.
its not like they can just ask australian news to put in a no-robots file to stop google. because their human readers of australian news will manually add news feeds to facebook/google sites and end up having google to pay for it by listing it even though its viewer re-posted.

so yes google will shut down access to australia to avoid any slips.
they way i see it if australian news appeared on 2billion viewers search results around the world. australia would seek revenue value of 2billion views. however australia is a population of only 25million. so its not like google can advertise something to just 25m viewers to recoup the 2billion value

so i can see why they would be against it.
this would then also start opening a precedent that any website can then demand funds from google for just listing their site on google. which again is not how google works.

..
in the future i see australia putting google adsense on their news pages and then if their news stories go viral internationally australia can earn revenue from that.. as that how google works and thats how webservices always got paid.

[CryptocurencyKing]

I'm not surprised if this sort of bill is being passed on the tech giant by a government. This has always being there way to generate revenue from every thing they could lay their paws on and with the centralized nature of google search engine, everything is ready for government influence and exploitation. Should it help, I don't see it as a bad idea but then, if the content of what is available on Google and some privacy documents would be influenced then, it becomes a problem.

[anoncoiner23]

So googles free publicity is no longer enough or aussie gov. has just realized they can profit from it? and now they're trying to help content creators cash in ? while also collect more taxes (Generate new rev.) by proxy? that's what my brains constructing, could be off. Everything is  revenue driven though, so if it works expect more countries follow suite. Google ads are is a billion dollar industry anyways. 2020 it was 39B

reference:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2020/06/22/in-a-first-google-ad-revenue-expected-to-drop-in-2020-despite-growing-digital-ad-market/#:~:text=eMarketer%20estimates%20that%20Google's%20net,from%20%2441.80%20billion%20in%202019.&text=eMarketer%20expects%20Google's%20share%20of,2019%20to%2029.4%25%20in%202020.

[Natsuu]

Something similar happened in Spain in 2014. The Government wanted to charge Google for displaying local news using their news search engine and Google simply stopped offering that service there. Initially traffic of Spanish media sources went dows about 15%.

For many years, Spain was the only country in the world without google news service.

Just now it's working after they reached a deal recently.

If there is a similar case that happens, then the probability of this law being approved is low. And even if this got approved, I don't think google will settle a deal of paying those companies for local news, and instead close the search engine as they already have data of what will gonna happen anyways.

I can understand the sentiment of the local news companies but technology is progressing, and we should adapt to it.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

To me it sounds much like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Googles links are directing viewers to the news sites and in many ways is FREE advertising for the news sites. Would the sites rather remain unknown and unfindable? Apparently, yes...

If they go after search engines I suppose they can still rely on print/radio/TV ads to get folks to know about the news sites but that is a rather archaic route to take plus the news sites PAY for the ads. To me, biting the hand that is providing FREE links to their sites is a rather bizarre way of thinking...

[squatz1]

LOL. What the hell is this law in Australia, look at this quote from the NYPost article:

The proposal — which is being widely watched and could serve as a model for other countries whose local media have been hurt by the growing dominance of Google and Facebook over online advertising — would allow news companies to negotiate payments from the tech giants for the use of their content that appears in search results or news feeds. An arbitrator would decide the price if the parties are unable to reach a deal.

The proposal has broad political support down under and is backed by publishers such as News Corp., which owns The Post and publishes eight of Australia’s top 10 newspapers.

(Bolded by me)

Thinking about all of this for a second, I think we can see what side the NYPOST probably on, lol. Curious to see what this law looks like in real practice.

If countries really want to regulate tech, they’re going to need to do it with a coalition of other countries to ensure that they cant be bullied by these huge companies.

[franky1]

Google is human rights
Without google no internet
Fb is google youtube is google
Google is internet

food seems like a human right. but if shops b,c,d exist even if not great.. then shop A can ban a person for any reason

food seems like a human right. but as long as food charity/food banks exist the government doesnt have to pay for the meals.

money seems like a human right. but as long as there i more then one brand. a bank can ban you from their service

if yahoo and other search engines exist. google is not a right. and just one of many available services.
 

[Natsuu]

Google is human rights
Without google no internet
Fb is google youtube is google
Google is internet

Google is not internet, I am not good in history, and really not good in dates, so I just quickly search the date when they've been established, and look what I found. January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the Internet while, In August 1998,...Google Inc. was officially born .

[OpenCryptoSystem]

Google is internet .
If google do disapere its shock for people biggest shock.
We need google everyday

[Mariangle Blocker]

why turn off? Google is my favorite search engine BTW:where did you hear this?

[jrrsparkles]

AFAIK, government is asking part of their earning as share to the news websites when their articles shown in their search engine which isn't fair because its just a search engine andit was created to bring the results what people wanted with their keywords.

Google warned the government and if this becomes a law then surely they will stop their services to Australian region.

[Nhazwrath]

The internet existed prior to google.   the internet will exist post google.   Google is Not the internet in any way shape or form.   There are dozens of other search engines which will do the similar job that google does.  no not as well due to the fact google is actually quite good at the job it does.  I actually welcome the lack of google due to the fact its algo does in fact not find what I am looking for all the damn time and instead puts crap hats unrelated but makes google money clicks in my way.

[jrrsparkles]

The internet existed prior to google.   the internet will exist post google.   Google is Not the internet in any way shape or form.   There are dozens of other search engines which will do the similar job that google does.  no not as well due to the fact google is actually quite good at the job it does.  I actually welcome the lack of google due to the fact its algo does in fact not find what I am looking for all the damn time and instead puts crap hats unrelated but makes google money clicks in my way.

Google is no the entire internet but most people thinks that Google is the internet. I can see lot of statistics says that 80% of internet uses google to make any searches on internet and another 10% on Youtube so the alternative search engines don't even took the second place. Google is making money like every other search engines does and you know Google knows more about you than you know about yourself which applies to everyone in this world.