Stratechery quotes and rebuts the official sources you linked. It's hard for me to imagine a more poorly thought out legislation. [1]
It completely unfairly favor news orgs over the rest of the web, it gives publishers extensive control of user discussion about content that they own which is an affront to the principle of free speech, the terms of the forced binding arbitration are incredibly vague and, well, arbitrary.
The ACCC response is also nonsense.
> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.
Google's letter didn't mention anything about charging Australians for the user of its free services at all. If you actually read the open letter [2], it doesn't even contain the words "charge" or "price" or "cost" or "fee" or imply anything about charging users.
> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.
Google never said it had to share "additional user data", whatever that means. It is quite clear in claiming that "Under this law, Google has to tell news media businesses “how they can gain access” to data about your use of our products. There’s no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected, or how it might be used by news media businesses." [2] which is absolutely true.
The ACCC is responding to fictitious claims. It's the ACCC response that contained misinformation, not Google's open letter.
Speaking as an Australian who has been following this closely, the Stratechery post is the best analysis I have seen of the situation, and cuts through the spin that F and G have put on it.
It checks out with the ongoing relationship Murdoch has with the LNP who are in government.
I encourage anyone interested in the topic to check out the Stratechery article on it.
> Google's letter didn't mention anything about charging Australians for the user of its free services at all.
It absolutely does. One of the headlines in the open letter was "Hurting the free services that you use", and includes:
... the law is set up to ... encourage them to make enormous and unreasonable demands that would put our free services at risk.
(Edited for brevity and clarity, but you can compare against the original.)
If Google didn't want to give the impression that they would have to start charging, they could have deleted the words "free" and it would still have made sense.
With the "your free services are at risk" messaging, Google was definitely trying to create the fear of a price increase. They didn't say "the quality of your services are at risk".
> They didn't say "the quality of your services are at risk".
I think you missed these clear cut sentences: "The proposed changes are not fair and they mean that Google Search results and YouTube will be worse for you." and "There’s no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected, or how it might be used by news media businesses." which point to service quality and privacy, not price.
The legislation is, honestly, difficult enough to parse that linking it with a non-specific comment ("sounds well thought out") just turns into a tar pit. I can't tell if you have specific agreements or disagreements, and the only approach available to discuss is to basically summarize it or link to it again.
On the ACCC response: it implies google made statements they did not, and seems to willfully ignore the reality of supporting the cost of a free service.
Do you have specific things you think this does or doesn't do? In the future it helps to start with those.
> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.
Yes the law doesn't imply this in any way.
But it requires Google to notify most changes "in terms that are readily comprehensible". What if an algorithm cannot be explained in comprehensible terms (e.g. machine learning)? What if they don't want their teams to be limited to changes that can be explained? What if they don't want to share their internal changes (e.g. they don't want a competitor to know, or they don't want these changes to be a "TODO how to update your site")?
What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it's impossible for a big company to decide to develop a less magic and simpler algorithm for Australia instead. And once you consider how small Australia is (in terms of population, and business opportunity), this might only sense if you combine it with a paid membership.
Note that I'm not saying this will happen, I think it's more likely that big companies will decide to opt out from displaying news or (in extreme cases) opt out from the Australian market completely (if they can't make it work).
> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.
IANAL but section 52M(2) seems to contradict this (52M(2)(e) implies Google must make the data available to media companies)
> A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy.
Strongly agree with this, and I'm generally in favour of making sure media companies get their fair share of $$$.
But the idea that government can define which companies deserve an extremely unfair advantages (compared to all other companies, e.g. small media companies), and force google to explain all changes with a 28 days notice... that's just bollocks.
The ACCC response if disingenuous. It fails to mention the requirement that Google and FB must give news entities 28 days of any changes to their ranking algorithm. I mean WTF. It's the most brain dead piece of legislation you could imagine.
I think it actually misrepresents Google's statements too - the ACCC response makes it sound like Google are saying they would be required to charge for their services, but Google actually said that the code might make it no longer worthwhile for them to provide their services for free in Australia.
It would have been fair to say that part of Google's statement is probably an exaggeration, but the ACCC instead muddies the waters by rebutting something Google didn't actually say...
This nice and vague part of the legislation sounds like an insurmountable hurdle to me:
> a) a list and explanation of the data that the digital platform service collects (whether or not it shares the data with the registered news business) about the registered news business’ users through their engagement with covered news content made available by the digital platform service;
> c) a list and explanatio nof the data that the digital platform service currently has a practice of making available to registered news businesses;
> e) information about how the registered news business corporation can gain access to the data mentioned in paragraphs (a)and (c).
Google/Facebook may not even have the architecture to supply all that information to begin with. And if they did, this is beyond just analytics. It seems to be requiring the companies hand over what allows them to be competitive at all.
It completely unfairly favor news orgs over the rest of the web, it gives publishers extensive control of user discussion about content that they own which is an affront to the principle of free speech, the terms of the forced binding arbitration are incredibly vague and, well, arbitrary.
The ACCC response is also nonsense.
> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.
Google's letter didn't mention anything about charging Australians for the user of its free services at all. If you actually read the open letter [2], it doesn't even contain the words "charge" or "price" or "cost" or "fee" or imply anything about charging users.
> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.
Google never said it had to share "additional user data", whatever that means. It is quite clear in claiming that "Under this law, Google has to tell news media businesses “how they can gain access” to data about your use of our products. There’s no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected, or how it might be used by news media businesses." [2] which is absolutely true.
The ACCC is responding to fictitious claims. It's the ACCC response that contained misinformation, not Google's open letter.
[1] https://stratechery.com/2020/australias-news-media-bargainin...
[2] https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open...