Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by visarga 2136 days ago
I don't think Google News displays ads on result pages, just the title + thumbnail. Why should they pay for displaying these links when they don't earn anything on them, it doesn't make business sense.

As for news discovered by regular search, I think that is different because the user has to input specific search keywords and restrict to recent results. The difference is about intention and recurring visits.

The situation seems similar to the Google Books fiasco, where we didn't end up with a searchable online library of out of print books. Lots of arguments were raised back then as now, but the bottom line was that everyone tried to do good for himself and we all got less - the prisoner's dilemma in action.
1 comments
clouddrover 2136 days ago
> it doesn't make business sense

If it didn't make business sense then Google wouldn't be showing them in the first place. It plainly does make business sense. Google shouldn't be afraid to pay for what it uses.

link
brokenmachine 2135 days ago
If the news sites do not want the traffic, they are perfectly free to use their robots.txt to stop google from scraping.

The want to have their cake and eat it too, plus get paid for the privilege.

Having said this, I have no sympathy for Google either.

link
clouddrover 2135 days ago
They aren't perfectly free to do it and that's the point. Read what the ACCC is doing and why it is doing it:

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-news-media-...

link
brokenmachine 2134 days ago
Nothing in that link that I can see prevents the news businesses from excluding themselves from being scraped by google using robots.txt.

Well, nothing except for the fact that their own sites are not compelling enough for customers in order to be profitable, so they don't want to do it.

link
clouddrover 2134 days ago
So you're saying the only problem is practical reality. Good insight.

What do you think this is all about? The ACCC is acting to address the practical realities of the situation. That's what the ACCC is there for.

link
brokenmachine 2134 days ago
I think this is about crony capitalism. The old mates want to have their cake and eat it too and get paid as well, and their mates are making that happen.

Just the fact that the ABC and SBS are excluded says it all really. This is clearly not about journalism.

link