[HN Gopher] Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada ove... ___________________________________________________________________ Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law Author : matbilodeau Score : 261 points Date : 2023-06-29 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.ctvnews.ca) (TXT) w3m dump (www.ctvnews.ca) | ChrisArchitect wrote: | Is there really anything new in this post from the news that came | out last week? | AlanYx wrote: | Last week it was Facebook. Today it's Google too. And the | impact is arguably more significant given that Google is | delisting Canadian news from their core search engine (not just | from news.google.com), which has 92% market share in Canada. | whitewingjek wrote: | The eff had an interesting article[1] about this issue (and | others) as well as some alternative ways solve the issue, not | that I agree with all of them. | | Ultimately, this is the wrong approach. The internet should be | "open," and people or companies should be free to link to | whatever they want without penalty. | | [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | > The internet should be "open," | | Which RFC is that? | throw0101a wrote: | "The Internet is for End Users": | | * https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8890 | tomlin wrote: | Facebook, Instagram, etc. are not "open", so the argument | doesn't work. | nceqs3 wrote: | While I agree with them, it's important to note that the EFF is | very pro-big tech and is largely funded by them. | halJordan wrote: | People are so often surprised when the money in an industry | funds an industry group. It's especially egregious in the | defense industry when people turn it into conspiracy theories | saying like "this think tank is a puppet because they got | money from the people with money." | jewelry wrote: | exactly. like how else they'll get the money? do you the | random people donate? | SllX wrote: | Obviously a bake sale and all the members of the think | tank have to work gig economy jobs in-between research, | writing and speeches just to keep the lights on in a | dinky little conference room of the sub-sub-sub basement | of the Pentagon they rent out. | | Perks of the job mainly consist of being able to | sporadically say "Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. | This is the War Room!" and having critics in the | mainstream media that hate your guts and will-- | uncompensated!--drop your name on a frequent basis and | imply you are much much much more important and | influential than you actually are. | worik wrote: | > it's important to note that the EFF is very pro-big tech | and is largely funded by them. | | I find that a puzzling comment. EFF has a strange way of | showing its allegiance to "Big Tech". | | What do I not know? How does the EFF demonstrate its | allegiance to them? | | I took the EFF's work on privacy as an impediment to "Big | Tech"'s business model. How am I wrong? | empressplay wrote: | Like weather reporting, journalism (in the 'what happened' sense, | not all of this 'analysis' crap) should be funded by the public. | The independence of the journalism department must be enshrined | in law, but further I imagine a system where anyone can apply to | become a journalist assuming they meet minimum requirements. You | submit your accounts, and if they pass quality checks (including | rejecting editorial content and passing basic fact checking) they | get published and you get paid. Multiple accounts of the same | event may (and should) be posted, and so then the reader can | build a picture from those varied sources. This is citizen | journalism, funded by the government and lightly edited, its | purity spelled out to the literal letter by law. It's the only | way out. | wintogreen74 wrote: | >> Walker said he wrote a letter to Canadian Heritage Minister | Pablo Rodriguez early Thursday morning to inform him and his team | of the decision. | | The fact that this is being lead by the Minister of Heritage | should tell you how little this has to do with actual business | and technology justifications. | j45 wrote: | This will likely have a worse effect than intended of fewer | people having access to Canadian ends and instead American news | or worse the meme news networks that have out educated press | conferences over the pandemic. | paddw wrote: | Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this | seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically | targeting Google and Meta. | | Sometimes taking the simple view is correct: It's a bad thing to | prevent sites from linking to one another. It's a bad thing to | interfere with the ability to access information on the Internet | for reasons of nationalist politics. | basisword wrote: | Governments are there to serve their citizens, not the | interests of foreign multinational companies. If this is good | for Canadian businesses and the citizens running them and | working for them then good for them. | p0pcult wrote: | [dead] | Barrin92 wrote: | I've always considered linking perfectly fine, but what to me | is shady when platforms start to summarize or preview content | of the link to the point where that functions as a substitute | for the site. | | There needs to be a distinction between reference to content | and the content itself. When platforms start to profit from | other people's work without their consent that shouldn't fly. | Google search's primary purpose is to make links discoverable | and I don't think anyone ever took offense to that. But in | recent years companies have started to deliberately blur that | line by showing more content upfront, essentially to turn | themselves into a middleman and choke content producers. It's | perfectly legitimate to not allow this. | tyingq wrote: | It's a little more nuanced than _" many | people...rationalize...because it's specifically targeting | Google"_. | | It wasn't that long ago that Google was forcing AMP onto the | same publishers by making it a requirement to appear in the | news carousel. That forced a lot of unwanted intrusion into | content that wasn't Google's to mess with. Including a forced | banner in the most valuable space, hijacking right/left swipes | to navigate to competitor publisher sites, etc. They have a | strong demonstrated history of doing the wrong thing in this | space. | | Though, I agree, this law and the outcome aren't the solution. | kittiepryde wrote: | AMP made the internet on my phone work. Most sites seem to | dedicate 50% or more of the screen space to advertisements | and load very slowly -- AMP sites were just crazy more | performant -- I'm not saying AMP was the right move to make, | but, it was trying to solve a real problem (similar to this | bill also likely being the wrong move) | basisword wrote: | AMP worked like shit for me. Any time I had weird | behavioural issues with a site, I'd look to the address bar | and spot AMP. Using an extensions to prevent AMP stealing | my clicks has made my phones browser work much better. | tyingq wrote: | It did have some benefits for consumers (and some drawbacks | also). That doesn't really change what they did to | publishers with it though. | tomlin wrote: | On the other hand, less people arguing over news articles may | be what the world needs. | devsda wrote: | I don't see how we can call this nationalistic politics. I'm | sure if a (hypothetical) Canadian big-tech impacted news | organizations similarly, they would also have been a target of | this law. | | Many of the biggest tech have origins in US and any country | trying to make a law regulating businesses and technology | within its borders is bound to impact American companies one | way or the other. We can take the easy route and call it just | nationalism or we can try to understand the intention/reasons | behind the law. We may not agree with their laws but it is | their right. | dleslie wrote: | > I'm sure if a (hypothetical) Canadian big-tech impacted | news organizations similarly, they would also have been a | target of this law. | | Very unlikely, IMHO. The CRTC isn't in the habit of making | decisions that harm large Canadian companies. | cornholio wrote: | Nobody denies its their right, but that doesn't mean it's not | a very stupid action, motivated by dumb nationalism. You | can't handwave circumstances away, as if the legislators | don't know it is a cashgrab against foreign corporations and | genuinely believe Google and Facebook are Canadian companies. | gremlinunderway wrote: | [flagged] | jurassic wrote: | I don't think it adds anything to the discussion to | personify and sexualize these companies. | tomComb wrote: | It's not dumb nationalism, it's typical lobbying, sold as | nationalism. | largepeepee wrote: | What's new? | | We have been using that same excuse to block out Japanese | and Chinese goods in various eras. | | Just feels weird the Canadians are copying our playbook | jrockway wrote: | They're using this playbook because it worked. Look at | China, they were once a big threat to American | Exceptionalism or whatever and now... <checks notes>... | oh. Nevermind. | themitigating wrote: | I appreciate most of your argument and I also agree that we | can't just use nationalism to dismiss laws like this BUT | | "We may not agree with their laws but it is their right" | | This statement can be used to justify any law. We are also | not debating whether it's their right but if it's a good law. | grecy wrote: | > _Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like | this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically | targeting Google and Meta._ | | That was exactly the sentiment in Australia when similar laws | were passed there. Many, many people just said "Good, it's | about time Google and Meta paid their fair share of taxes". | | But they completely misunderstood they are not taxes at all, | it's the Australian government collecting money, by law, to | give directly to Rupert Murdoch (by law) | adjav wrote: | Yeah, the biggest winner under the Canadian law will be the | American hedge funds who own PostMedia, the company that owns | the vast majority of Canadian newspapers. But that's good | apparently, since at the least the money doesn't go to those | icky tech nerds. | pyrale wrote: | > Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this | seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically | targeting Google and Meta. | | It's not just a matter of the targeted companies being Google | and Meta, even though these two especially deserve it. | | It's the simple realization that good journalism requires good | money, and that the current balance between news organizations | and internet brokers isn't up to the task. It is also true of | other type of content creators, by the way: there is a | structural imbalance between content creators and content | brokers. This is even more true with Google's zero-click | efforts. | | While Canada's bill may not be well-tuned, it is a welcome | first attempt. | [deleted] | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | Don't want people gazing on your property? Erect a fence. | Nothing prevents media sites from implementing access | controls to only allow paying customers. | pyrale wrote: | That's a classic case of prisoner's dilemma though. | | By acting at national level, news publishers (partially) | avoid that dilemma. | HDThoreaun wrote: | No one pays. Journalism is a public good that will not | exist if the current status quo continues. It's in | societies interest to ensure that doesn't happen but | everyone wants to free ride | tsimionescu wrote: | Don't want people stepping on your property? Shoot them | down, why bother calling the police! | skeeter2020 wrote: | >> While Canada's bill may not be well-tuned, it is a welcome | first attempt. | | I normally agree with release early, collect data and | iterate. I'm not sure the law, with a bill of this impact, | dependent on a bunch of politicians with obvious bias, who | just went on summer vacation for 3 months, falls into this | category. | musha68k wrote: | Just tax big companies more liberally, in general and | everywhere. No need to target so specifically, e.g. there is | so much value in all the data that citizens all around the | world are providing, almost for free... maintenance costs for | supporting usage are low in comparison, check yearly investor | reports for profits. | | Then we'd not only have enough financial resources to | subsidize a free and healthy press but also for other worthy | endeavours like better health care, open source software, | science, etc. | | _All without hampering with basic pillars of the web._ | lkhtbn wrote: | We need proper paid subscriptions again, but we have the | chicken/egg problem that people only pay for extremely high | quality sources, but there are none. | | CBC has received $1.2 billion annually from the federal | government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Broadcasti | ng_Corporat...) and is very ... government friendly ... in | matters like the trucker protests. | | I remember more independent press around 2000-2010, where | there was true opposition in the media. I see nothing like | that now. | graeme wrote: | >While Canada's bill may not be well-tuned, it is a welcome | first attempt. | | The problem is media companies have been pushing this exact | blueprint for d years. decades. It is a terrible, terrible | template. | | If countries want to tax big tech and give the money to media | organizations, they should be honest about it. Laws like this | distort reality. | | >the current balance between news organizations and internet | brokers isn't up to the task. | | This doesn't make sense. Newspapers _want_ links to their | stories. I 've even seen media organization paying "internet | brokers" to advertise stories. | | The law has the economics of the internet backwards. To | receive a link is to benefit, everyone knows this except the | government. | basisword wrote: | >> If countries want to tax big tech and give the money to | media organizations, they should be honest about it. Laws | like this distort reality. | | The idea that big tech would pay the appropriate amount of | tax to the appropriate country is laughable. | pyrale wrote: | > This doesn't make sense. Newspapers want links to their | stories. | | Newspapers want monetization. There are three ways linking | to stories equal monetization: | | * Newspapers get enough ad money through these link. This | mostly doesn't work. | | * Newspapers cut their costs and deliver shitty clickbait. | | * Newspapers get funded by "philantropy". This ranges from | newspapers independently funded by trust funds to | newspapers being bought by magnates. | | Overall, we can see that linking is far from enough for | most newspapers to publish independent, quality work. | | > To receive a link is to benefit, everyone knows this | except the government. | | This appears to no longer be true. Groups benefiting from | internet are mostly eyeball brokers, not content | distributors. | sroussey wrote: | Newspapers lost monetization when they lost their | classifieds business. | bandrami wrote: | 4: Links bring in readers who then decide to support the | journalism. | | I personally believe reader support is the only viable | option going forward. | duringmath wrote: | There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, search | engines/social networks surface and link to it. | | What's happening here is that publishers and their owners | somehow figured these pesky internet wiz kids owe them more | money. | tenpies wrote: | The nefarious (and probably correct) take is that this is | intentional by the Trudeau Liberals. | | If you obliterate 30% of every news media's revenue you | make them even more dependent on the Liberals funding them. | This is on top of the existing "Support Canadian | Journalism" fund that the Liberal government distributes in | a completely "unbiased" way. | | Put simply: Trudeau wants absolute control of Canadian | media. Bill C-18 is the first of three to achieve this | objective. This grants them more control by making them the | major source of income for all media. The next one will be | about funding Canadian content (which the Liberals will | define and select). The last will be about censoring and | de-platforming hate (which they will also define and | select). When Trudeau is done - and he will finish because | the NDP will support him no matter what - Canada's media | landscape will look something like a blend between North | Korea and China. | pyrale wrote: | > There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, | search engines/social networks surface and link to it. | | As evidenced by the average RoI at Google compared to news | organisations. | amf12 wrote: | > As evidenced by the average RoI at Google compared to | news organisations. | | Not a good metric. | | The ROI difference is because of both entities being in | different industries, and other things unrelated to the | power balance. We can similarly compare the ROI of a news | organization and say a restaurant and lament that there | is an imbalance of power. | tempestn wrote: | I expect you'll find that discontinuing their news | linking service in Canada has very little effect on | Google's profitability. | pyrale wrote: | I agree that Canada should probably have targeted their | ad service rather than which link they publish. | throwuwu wrote: | One is the world's dominant gateway to the internet, the | others are a handful of websites. | Majromax wrote: | > There's no imbalance here: newspapers produce content, | search engines/social networks surface and link to it. | | The imbalance is that _as platforms_ , newspapers cross- | subsidize content. Interesting headlines attract readers to | the newspaper, but once in hand readers are likely to | continue reading the other, less unique articles. (See also | why newspapers carry sports scores and comics). An | investigative report is by itself a money-loser, but the | overall effect on net readership is a win. | | Aggregators break newspapers as platforms. Google et al | provide extra discoverability for a single article, | certainly, but then there's no lock-in to keep readers on | the (now) website, reading more and seeing other ads. | Headline-and-summary view might even result in zero-click | satisfaction, denying the outlet even that first | impression. | | This might just be a change that the industry must adapt | to, in the same way that television and radio news took | over the news-breaking role. However, it is more than a | trivial threat to the fundamental business model of a news | outlet; it's not (just) superficial greed. | tensor wrote: | Personally I'd be happy to see the ad driven model die. | It used to be that people bought newspapers or didn't | read them. They still had some ads, granted, but far less | intrusive than today's web ads with their colours and | animations. | | I'm huge into supporting good journalism, and think we | need some sort of intervention here. But I'm very very | strongly opposed to this new law. If news sites want to | charge for their content they should put it behind a pay | gate. | | I pay for news, but insultingly they STILL feed me ads. | There is no tier that I can pay for that will eliminate | the ads. I really don't have much sympathy for them given | their refusal to somehow adapt to the times and offer | service that users feel valuable enough to pay for. | sroussey wrote: | The can post a robots.txt file to say not to index. | GeekyBear wrote: | How do they say "You can index the story in your search | engine, but you cannot borrow the text or images of our | content for use on your own news site or info panels"? | veddan wrote: | I think you can do this with <meta | name="googlebot-news" content="nosnippet"> | AYBABTME wrote: | > there is a structural imbalance between content creators | and content brokers | | As seen in Twitch.tv vs Kick.com where streamers are dropping | Twitch and migrating en-masse to Kick. Abusing the content | creators can backfire. However Google is in a different | situation; they have a virtual monopoly on content discovery | and not existing on Google basically means not existing at | all. How do you fix that? Is Google an internet-utility? | Should it be regulated as such? | Brybry wrote: | Twitch.tv vs Kick.com is a bit more complicated, right? | | Twitch claims it loses money on big streamers[1] and Kick | is almost certainly being subsidized by online gambling | company Stake[2][3]. | | [1] | https://twitter.com/djfluffkins/status/1479362350566109184 | | [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video- | games/2022/12/06/trainw... | | [3] https://www.bonus.com/news/stake-com-founders-own-kick/ | cma wrote: | I suspect Hollywood accounting going on here: paying | inflated egress to AWS, their own property with one of if | not the highest margins on egress in the business. | robertlagrant wrote: | It's not a utility. Search might be, and the state is | welcome to start its own search engine and run it as a | utility, paying zero innovation wages as utilities do. | cscurmudgeon wrote: | > It's the simple realization that good journalism requires | good money, and that the current balance between news | organizations and internet brokers isn't up to the task. It | is also true of other type of content creators, by the way: | there is a structural imbalance between content creators and | content brokers. This is even more true with Google's zero- | click efforts. | | Let's go 100%. Will journalists then pay people who they | report on? | LegitShady wrote: | I disagree that its welcome. I think its just a shakedown. | barbazoo wrote: | > It's a bad thing to prevent sites from linking to one | another. It's a bad thing to interfere with the ability to | access information on the Internet for reasons of nationalist | politics. | | Would this prevent embedding links into your posts? I thought | it's about platforms displaying enough information discouraging | the person to visit the news site. I get that they want people | to stay on their platforms 24/7 but I also get the other side | wanting a slice of the advertising cake. | monetus wrote: | When they said uncapped financial liability, I took that to | also mean any meta user's post or search engine result that | displayed the content could expose them financially - If I | were a malicious actor, I would flood meta with posts from | bots, and the equivalent to google results like posting too | much of the article in the website's header. | tomComb wrote: | No, the issue in this case is linking. | johnnyApplePRNG wrote: | This is only going to kill Canadian news outlets more than | they're already dead. | | If you're not on Google, you don't exist to 99% of the world. | | I expect their readership to fall at least 50% overnight. | sberens wrote: | Can someone ELI5 the argument for the bill? | | My impression is it's something like "news websites provide | content that creates engagement which drives ad revenue, and the | news websites want a piece of that revenue." | | Is my understanding correct? Also, I can see how it applies for | Facebook, how does it apply to Google? | bragr wrote: | That's basically the issue. And Google because Google News. | tradewinds wrote: | Not to argue in favour of the bill, but I think the idea is | Google's whole business model relies on others for content, so | a slice of that revenue should go to the content creators (even | though the content creators gain from Google, and can generate | their own ad revenues). | | The Liberal party is also trying to protect Canadian content | (again, not to defend or advocate for this policy), and I'm | sure this is part of it, even though it may ironically backfire | and end up hurting Canadian news outlets. | [deleted] | cpncrunch wrote: | Where are the adverts on google news? I haven't seen a single | advert there in 10 years, and I just looked very carefully in | case I somehow missed them, but no, there are none. | tradewinds wrote: | Even within the search results, there will be ads. If you | search "what happened in Canada today", Google will link | some news and there will likely be a sponsored link or some | form of income-generating item for Google. Then there's the | data you're generating as you use Google to navigate to the | content you want, which can also be sold. Google connects | you to content, every dollar they make is dependent on a | non-Google creator, with the exception of maybe some | Maps/Earth use-cases. | cpncrunch wrote: | I just tried, and didnt see any ads on news searches on | canada news, or other news searches. Do you see any? | tradewinds wrote: | I do on YouTube before videos from CBC News. I actually | don't on Google search results, but the search data you | generate in the process of connecting with news sites can | be used for a multitude of profitable uses-cases, | including selling targeted ads elsewhere on the internet. | philistine wrote: | The fact you think YOU need to see ads next to search | related to news DIRECTLY means you don't really | understand Google's modus operandi. | | They make money by building a profile from your usage. | And then selling that profile to advertisers. They make | money by having news, because they can build a profile | based on what you click and sell ads to those same | websites you visit. | iFire wrote: | This is the standard Canadian policy for decades in TV. | | https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/cancon/mandate.htm | jewelry wrote: | a piece of meal is normally the case of adsense. the problem i | guess is either flat fee (which would break the bank in | Google's local account) or big overhead fee (e-invoicing, | regulatory auditing, etc) | neverrroot wrote: | How long till they will beg to be re-linked? | DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote: | Not only will they beg, they'll offer money to be linked... | like all advertisers. | msla wrote: | Beg, nothing. They'll mandate Google link to them _and_ pay the | tax. | graeme wrote: | You generally can't force someone to do business with another | company. You can tax a company and give that company to | another organization. But you can't force google to run | google news in a given jurisdiction. | chroma wrote: | That may be mostly true in the US, but many other parts of | the world are more authoritarian. | | For example, Australia passed a law forcing Google to | negotiate with news publishers regarding payment.[1] | | When France passed a law requiring that Google pay news | sites for linking to them, Google tried to stop linking to | those sites. In response, France sued Google for half a | billion dollars for antitrust violations. | | 1. https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/25/after-facebooks-news- | flex-... | asfarley wrote: | Deeply shameful, as a Canadian. I did not ask for this. | timbit42 wrote: | Canadian media asked for it. | palijer wrote: | Yeah, it doesn't look like they asked every single individual | Canadian what they wanted. But here are the details for what | was driving this. | | https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/fair-re... | LegitShady wrote: | You have it backwards. Thats the way they justify what they | already had planned. That didn't drive this, that's the post- | decision excuse. "We consulted with stakeholders and press | decided they really wanted that money" | ix-ix wrote: | Meh, as a Canadian, this might not be perfect, but I am | happy whenever the government attempts to revitalize | Canadian heritage and remove American influences. | philistine wrote: | Not you specifically, but the majority of Canadians are in | favour of the principle. | | https://mediapolicy.ca/2022/11/09/nanos-survey-shows-public-... | agnosticmantis wrote: | I'm guessing if/when this takes effect, the publishers will have | to buy ads on Google and FB to attract readers that would | previously find the content in the said platforms? Seems like a | win for the two companies. | agnosticmantis wrote: | Also it seems like a business opportunity to start a newspaper | outside Canada that does journalism for Canada. Then you'd | appear in search results for free, while your Canadian | counterparts would have to pay for ads to show up on the first | page. | motohagiography wrote: | A side effect of this implies that if the internet platforms drop | all Canadian media as a result of this law, it demonetizes all | Canadian media, and then the only Canadian media that survives is | what is directly subsidized by the government at its discretion. | | I see why this "works" now. The effect is censorship and | silencing of disfavoured outlets with the pretense of | deniability. This country is a lost cause. | tenebrisalietum wrote: | Possible non-sequitur: | | ... "if the internet platforms drop all Canadian media as a | result of this law, it demonetizes all Canadian media, and then | the only Canadian media that survives is what is directly | subsidized by the government at its discretion." | | Does Canadian media have no other revenue stream other than the | Internet? | motohagiography wrote: | Yes, let them eat radio spots. | chongli wrote: | They still own cable and satellite TV. They make a lot of | their money from live sports, one of the only reasons to | still subscribe to cable. | rafaelturk wrote: | Undeniable truth remains: This is such a bad regulation | tomlin wrote: | Undeniable? | cratermoon wrote: | Loss of news in Canada via Google won't really happen. Google and | the news outlets will negotiate new agreements in line with the | law. Same with Facebook. It's in all parties interest to find an | acceptable compromise. Unless Google or Facebook decide to get | out of one side of online ad business entirely. | matbilodeau wrote: | Suggested workaround https://tt-rss.org/ | | Most news outlets have rss feeds | | https://www.thestar.com/about/rssfeeds.html | | https://www.cbc.ca/rss/ | glonq wrote: | Now that I'm weaning myself off of reddit, my favorite "toilet | reading" is news.google.com | | But since I'm in Canada, I suppose I'll go back to RSS or maybe | AP news. | m-p-3 wrote: | RSS is IMO the best way to follow multiple websites, not only | news. | opportune wrote: | I was curious how link taxes panned out in other places they were | tried and found this: https://www.techdirt.com/2021/06/21/as- | predicted-smaller-med... | | I honestly figured it would not even help the big sites - users | would have to start deliberately going to those sites directly | without first arriving there through an aggregator/search. | Apparently that's incorrect for major news organizations though | still true for smaller ones (which I guess have not enough brand | awareness for users to directly go to the site). I guess as it | long as link taxes appear beneficial for major news organizations | that can afford to lobby for them, we can sadly expect this to | happen in more and more countries. | | IANAL but I understand that most Anglosphere countries outside | the US have very different interpretations/not as strong | guarantees of freedom of expression as in the US and some other | Western countries. In countries with stronger protections I can't | imagine a link tax having legs. Given that a link itself is not | IP/content (I think), what would be the legal basis for | displaying it on a website requiring compensation to the linked | site? Though I suppose there is some precedent for requiring link | removal from eg Google through DMCA, it seems different because | in that case it's driving traffic to "stolen" content. | moneywoes wrote: | Didn't they try this in Australia and it failed? | rafaelturk wrote: | Startup idea: Canadian news, but based on US based website. | pyrale wrote: | It would be a pretty decent idea, if there wasn't a significant | risk to get nuked by regulation in a couple years. | jimnotgym wrote: | Just need the US and EU to follow suit now and the giants can get | back to paying for what they use! | alphanullmeric wrote: | What are they using? | [deleted] | thorncorona wrote: | Probably cocaine. By the looks of it. | scarface_74 wrote: | And in Australia it was pushed by Rupert Murdoch. | | But fair is fair. If publishers want to force social media to | pay for news content. Social Media has every right to refuse to | pay and refuse to redistribute. | JoshTriplett wrote: | > Social Media has every right to refuse to pay and refuse to | redistribute. | | Unfortunately Brazil is trying to take _that_ right away, | too. Hopefully they fail at doing so. | jupp0r wrote: | What leverage do they have? Companies can always pull out | of the country entirely. | tradewinds wrote: | Well, the leverage is that some profit is better than no | profit, in theory. | scarface_74 wrote: | If FB and Google both leave Brazil, it will put pressure | on the lawmakers to rescind the law. | tradewinds wrote: | Yep true, it's a game of chicken really. This is probably | what will happen in Canada anyway | JoshTriplett wrote: | Assuming that you don't then become locked into mandatory | "agreements" (and I use the term loosely given the | inability to refuse) with rates that keep going up. | Leaving aside that sometimes the principle outweighs the | profits; a link tax, or any other restriction on linking, | is an abhorrent constraint on the Internet. | human wrote: | As a Canadian, I feel like this is terrible news. From a web | publisher point of view, I do agree that Google is going to far | sometimes by embeding the content directly in the SERP. They take | it so far that most of the time you don't even need to click on | the article to get the summary. | swader999 wrote: | As a Canadian, I don't really care about this. The informed | citizen model is already broken by censorship, cancel culture, | corporate influence, paywalls, monopolies and a soon to be flood | of AI content. Burn it all down imo and let something else take | its place. I only use google news now to see what | agenda/narrative is being pushed at the moment or maybe to check | the weather. | gwright wrote: | > Burn it all down imo and let something else take its place. | | Probably hyperbole, but catastrophic failure of our | economy/institutions/society isn't something I would choose to | experience. | | This nihilistic attitude is dangerous, IMHO. In the extreme, it | is a self-fulfilling approach with severe consequences. | | Seems like we should be able to do better than that as a | society. | swader999 wrote: | It really has nothing to do with my attitude. Reality is the | majority of the electorate doesn't know/believe/care that | this is an issue. | morkalork wrote: | Media in Canada is in pretty dire straits right now. It looks | like one of the last left-ish leaning papers (Toronto Star) is | about to be gobbled up by post media. A huge swath of broadcast | news media is owned by just one company, Bell which predictably | leads to stories like "Top Bell Media executive urged CTV to | avoid 'negative spin' on coverage of parent company". Plus the | current batch of conservative leaders (PP, Danielle Smith, | Ford..) all have an axe to grind with what they portray as | leftist and woke media. Particularly the CBC, they'd love to see | that dismantled. Then there's all the wonderful personalities | involved like Conrad Black. | jonny_eh wrote: | > all have an axe to grind with is portrayed as the leftist | woke media | | Are you calling the media woke, or are you saying that | Conservative leaders are calling the media woke? | morkalork wrote: | Sorry if not clear. I mean how it is being portrayed by | conservative leaders, not a label I give it myself. | noughtme wrote: | I would like to see the CBC dismantled. The CBC no longer | fulfills its mandate of serving the general public. | | Your comment, "Top Bell Media executive urged CTV to avoid | 'negative spin' on coverage of parent company" equally applies | to CBC and the current government or leading political party. | somehowlinux wrote: | This doesn't mean it should be dismantled it means additional | laws should be put in place to make this type of thing | illegal for the politicians to do. | | The CBC is the only chance left for some sort of even keeled | news in Canada. | | Otherwise maybe some YouTube personalities might make a | showing - I'm sure the farmer into the middle of Alberta will | watch that. | ncr100 wrote: | So, would this law make the Star even cheaper, for acquisition, | as it reduces the reach of the Star? | peanuty1 wrote: | Important to note that the CBC is state-funded and even the | previous leader of the ultra left-wing party, Tom Mulcair, has | recently accused the CBC of having a heavy left-wing bias. | morkalork wrote: | Right, who could forget PP asking Elon Musk to get the CBC | flagged as state media in the same class as Xinhua and Russia | Today. | evandale wrote: | Great job missing Tom Muclair who was the one mentioned in | the comment. | belval wrote: | I don't know about heavy but CBC is definitely left-leaning. | I feel like that should be curbed with some watchdog for | media impartiality (not sure how it could be implemented?) | instead of doing away with it entirely. The reality is (at | least in Quebec), we don't have much to replace it. | | This is also a new development in journalism at CBC, older | journalists tend to value reporting over opinion pieces, | whereas younger journalists feel like it's their "duty" to | push their opinion onto the readership which is an extremely | toxic ideology. | jxdxbx wrote: | The argument is always that these companies are using and | benefiting from news for free. Now, they aren't. It's weird to | create a new kind of property right and then complain that | companies are choosing to simply stop doing the thing that | triggers the new right. | mgraczyk wrote: | I was at Facebook working on ranking when a similar thing | happened with Australia. | | Showing news is a net negative for Facebook and probably not very | positive for Google. Facebook's short and long term metrics were | better without news. Facebook and Google are basically doing | charity when they link to local news sites. These laws make | absolutely no sense when you think about that. | cubefox wrote: | Well, the users of Facebook/Google would like to link to those | sites, and Facebook/Google would like to keep those users... | mgraczyk wrote: | Yes the users want that content, but generally not as much as | they want other content that Facebook could show instead | esperent wrote: | * * * | cosmojg wrote: | Forget about Google and Meta, they'll be fine, but those poor | local news sites are screwed. | bratao wrote: | Brazil is currently considering a similar law that would require | social networks to compensate content creators for each | republication [1]. However, unlike the situation in Canada, the | Brazilian lawmakers have taken into account this scenario. The | law mandates that social networks cannot cease publishing the | content and must negotiate compensation in "fair terms." | Personally, I find this approach to be quite perplexing. | | [1] Source: | https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/politica/2023/04/50899... | morkalork wrote: | I demand royalties for my shit posts! | mrtksn wrote: | Sounds like you can print money out of thin air by creating | social media accounts who post your "news". It may force the | social media companies for proper policing the against fake | accounts. | timbit42 wrote: | Only fake accounts that post news links. | caycep wrote: | Would it have been better for these bills (CA/Brazil) to | mandate revenue sharing, i.e. no flat fee per link from google, | but a percentage of revenue from ads served associated w/ the | link? | philipkglass wrote: | That would be fair enough but also wouldn't give the | publishers what they want, because Google doesn't show ads in | their News app or in Google News on the web: | | https://news.google.com | | I just opened it on a browser with no ad blocker and scrolled | to the bottom. There are no ads in there. It's all news. | dragonwriter wrote: | > The law mandates that social networks cannot cease publishing | the content | | So, how does Brazil stop them from withdrawing from Brazil | entirely? | matheusmoreira wrote: | Money. They will remain here as long as there's still profit | to be made. Would be awesome if they had enough balls to tell | the brazilian government to go to hell but they just aren't | gonna do that as long as they're making money. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | The obvious way to beat that game is to stop carrying Brazilian | news _before_ the legislation is passed. | _aavaa_ wrote: | > "fair terms" | | The scare quotes are actually warranted here. I'd love to see | how you can come to fair terms when the other side know that | you cannot walk away. | amusingimpala75 wrote: | So if I understand correctly, those companies are now going to | be forced into paying for products that they cannot just stop | using? | daxfohl wrote: | If they want to operate in the country. Is google going to | leave whole countries just because of being required to use | and compensate local news? Essentially it's a tariff. | cheriot wrote: | Who decides what the tariff is? | Kamq wrote: | The de facto government. | SllX wrote: | Honestly? Why not. Not every country in the world is going | to pass a law this silly and for those that do, do you | really want to be in a business environment where the | National government puts you in a position of dictating | what services you must _also_ offer in order to continue | doing business at all in the country? Like what if Google | just decides for whatever reason at some point in the | future they don't want to continue to offer Google News | anywhere. That would be their prerogative. Whether they | spun it off, sold it or just shut it down are all valid | business choices they can make. | | At least it's easier in Canada where Google can go "okay, | we'll just remove you from _our_ index that we included you | in without charge that if you wanted to, you could have | removed yourself from at any time." | JoshTriplett wrote: | Or fighting a legal battle (which they will hopefully fight | and win), or leaving the jurisdiction and then saying "good | luck with that, let's find out how much of your companies' | revenue we were driving". | intrasight wrote: | If they just showed the title and the link - like they used | to - they it would drive revenue. But because they show a | synopsis of the news, people very often don't click the | link. | cpncrunch wrote: | Google News does just show the title. | amadeuspagel wrote: | This doesn't happen automatically, it's something | websites have to set up: | https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-for- | websites/c... | michaelmior wrote: | I'm skeptical that such explicit summaries are the only | thing social networks display. Even if that is currently | the case, it would be relatively trivial for a company | the size of Meta to generate and show their own summary. | cheriot wrote: | This is the way it's always worked. News orgs are asking | social media companies to display the summary and image | | https://css-tricks.com/essential-meta-tags-social-media/ | | They're not generating anything | matheusmoreira wrote: | > good luck with that, let's find out how much of your | companies' revenue we were driving | | I really wish these big techs would do that to Brazil. They | made enemies of the current administration when they | opposed their censorship laws. | chaostheory wrote: | Someone might correct me, but I believe that's what France | did. | viktorcode wrote: | I think you are right. I vaguely remember French publishers | losing revenue after Google News stopped referencing them. | verdverm wrote: | I recall Google eventually doing a deal with the French | publishers. You can find many articles like the following | coming out around the same time | | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/report- | google-wi... | [deleted] | TekMol wrote: | News outlets usually provide RSS feeds. | | Don't they allow to show the contents of those feeds on websites? | | And isn't showing the content of the RSS feed "fair use" anyhow? | | When I look at the content of the Toronto Star for example: | | https://www.thestar.com/content/thestar/feed.RSSManagerServl... | | My gut feeling is that showing those short snippets with a link | to the articles should be fair use. Am I wrong? | throw0101c wrote: | > _And isn 't showing the content of the RSS feed "fair use" | anyhow?_ | | Fair use and copyright are 'artificial' legal constructs, so if | they were defined in an 'arbitrary' way to begin with, they can | be redefined to add or remove provisions. These online | publishing laws could tweak those provisions. | | Also: when an RSS/Atom feed is published, it is still | copyrighted, and the terms and conditions would/could perhaps | be defined what "fair use" is by copyright holder (maybe?). | TekMol wrote: | Sure, laws are human constructs. | | But what is the situation in Canada now? Did they really put | a law into place which says "When you link to a page with a | short excerpt to show what the link is about, this is now a | copyright violation"? | | Wouldn't that also make search engines illegal? | d0gsg0w00f wrote: | > Wouldn't that also make search engines illegal? | | Seems like yes. From the article: | | "The tech giant plans to remove news links from its search | engine, Google News and Google Discover for only Canadian | publishers and readers." | robryan wrote: | Seems like this will be much worse for the media | companies. It isn't like most people who clicked on news | while casually scrolling their feed are suddenly going to | start going to all these news sites direct. | mrweasel wrote: | My understanding was that the complaints was against using | larger excerpts. I haven't used neither Googles nor Metas | offerings, but the objection that I read in a different article | was about users reading the news on Facebook, rather than | letting the users click through to the newspapers. | | If Google and Meta just generate free traffic for the news | site, then I'm not really sure why they're complaining. If | their write is straight up reproduced without permission then I | understand. | TekMol wrote: | When I visit https://news.google.com I only see very short | excerpts like "Supreme Court Rejects Affirmative Action at | U.S. Colleges". | varenc wrote: | My interpretation is that Google/Meta do only reproduce | short excerpts, however short excerpts is all many people | ever read. If those excerpts satisfy people's interests, | then they never end up visiting the actual new sites. | | Even on HN it's not uncommon to see people commenting on | articles they've only read the title of. | pessimizer wrote: | > they never end up visiting the actual news sites. | | I don't understand anyone who just visits a general news | site and reads arbitrary articles. I understand with | physical newspapers, because they deliver it to your | house in the morning and there was no alternative but to | subscribe to multiple papers. I have to think that only | senior citizens do it now. I only pay for outlets because | I want them to be healthy and to continue publishing, and | I don't personally care about some major city's | establishment paper, and don't care whether it shuts | down. | cma wrote: | Will news stories that are just rewrites of other news | stories pay the original now? | Permit wrote: | My understanding is that Australia created a similar law and both | FB/Google came to the bargaining table. | | Does anyone know what's different this time? Is the law | different? Is Canada a less valuable market? | peanuty1 wrote: | Presumably Meta has learned that media linking is not worth | negotiating with hostile governments. | jeffbee wrote: | That's not exactly what happened. Facebook stopped serving | Australian news stories and the Australian news industry | immediately surrendered to Meta's terms. | ahahahahah wrote: | If you were meta and wanted to go to that bargaining table, | would you want to have a good understanding of the value that | these links are providing you and your users? Would you maybe | try to get that understanding by running a small test in the | wild where you disabled these links for some users? | jonny_eh wrote: | How can you negotiate once the law was on the books? I assume | that negotiations were attempting before the law was passed. | monsieurgaufre wrote: | Disclaimer: Am Canadian. | | The way i see it, it's a clear case of "we tried nothing and | we're out of ideas" on BOTH sides. The canadian medias are boring | and are mostly opinions and a few Reuters/AFP articles. On the | other hand, GOOG and Meta are not even acknowledging that they're | trying to bully nations around while providing a slowly worse | service as time goes by and profiteering from work they acquire | for free. I do understand that people weren't forced to use this | service in the past and can (with some level of difficulties) | remove their content. | | It's not as clear an issue some would like it to be. I know that | I will remove myself of both these services in the future as they | are hostile (and really, i should move to my own domain for lots | of reasons). | jupp0r wrote: | I don't see the problem. News outlets can now negotiate | individually with Google if they still want the free traffic. | Google will be paying $0 to them. Other outlets who don't want | the free traffic from Google can choose to not receive it, as | they can right now via robots.txt. | monsieurgaufre wrote: | Traffic is generated by the content which is not free (most | of the time) to produce. Google without content is what | except an empty library? | | I'm not sure why people here are defending GOOG so much. | jupp0r wrote: | Google is stopping to show results for news outlets, so | everything is fine, right? What else do you criticize them | for? | tredre3 wrote: | As you say, Google without content is an empty library. But | it works in the other direction too. News websites without | Google/Social Media are ghost towns. Few people go to them | directly. | Arnavion wrote: | News websites worked fine before Google. People did go to | them directly. | tradewinds wrote: | News outlets have to compete within Google's search | results. Google is, at least currently, the de facto | search engine and their competition over providing _all_ | results is minimal. So Google is benefitting from the | overall relationship far more than the outlets are. Not | saying Google owes them, but there is a clear difference | in competition between the two sides. | rektide wrote: | It depends on whether you consider a headline and part of a | sentance the content or not, I I guess. | | It sure doesn't seem to me like creating a link & giving | people an extremely concise blurb that hopefully entices | them to follow it is the content. As an individual I expect | to be able to cite things in the world and to tell people | how they can read it too. Legislating that basic right away | feels like _madness_. | throwawaycad11 wrote: | Canadian here as well. | | Your assumption that traffic is generated by content | (alone) is incorrect. Google is certainly profiting, but | the news publisher will struggle to find readers without | Google. It's a symbiotic relationship, but Google is doing | the REAL work. If you don't believe that, build your own | website and try to get people to read your content. Believe | me, content doesn't matter as much as reach. | | If you want to support Canadian news outlets, then go to | their websites directly. Let's see them stand on their own | without Google, and see who provides the most value. | | This law will kill Canadian news outlets. No one pays for | their content when there's a global ecosystem of stuff to | subscribe to. That's capitalism. Good riddance. | monsieurgaufre wrote: | I already go directly to the websites. Have always done | that. | | I subscribe for a specialized publication that offers | free articles because i find the publication useful. | | I might be dumb but i can't understand how content | matters less than reach. Without content, reach is | useless. (and without reach, content is mostly useless as | well..) | | My take is that both are things of the past and using | legal ways to fight for relevancy, each for different | reasons. I don't have a horse in this race. | wand3r wrote: | Speaking for myself, on the merits, Google's position makes | more sense. On an emotional level, I dislike media news | companies companies more than I dislike Google...which is a | lot. | monsieurgaufre wrote: | We share a similar dislike for media news companies.. and | Google. Like i said, i find the media companies boring | and they abdicated a while ago being the "fourth" power. | I might also not understand all the consequences of the | bill as well. | tsunamifury wrote: | Canadian citizens are completely free to type a url into a bar | and visit a newspaper | bluenose69 wrote: | I actually forgot about google-news. It used to be my landing | page, long ago. Now my landing page is an actual (online) | newspaper. I like the fact that it is well-organized, with | curated content by professional reporters. I pay a little for | this, but find it to be good value. | | I won't miss google news. And I never saw any real value in | facebook. | | So, my response to this, as a Canadian, is "who cares, eh?" | tick_tock_tick wrote: | I mean I'd assume you care. Either they are going to jack the | price way up for you or the quality will plummet. They don't | have a plan to just go without all the revenue they get from | Google. | ortusdux wrote: | They went to great lengths to no mention Meta. | | _Bill C-18 changes the rules for linking by requiring two | companies, including Google, to pay Canadian news publishers | simply for linking to their sites._ | quitit wrote: | Although I disagree with this kind of law: | | Was it just linking? Or was it providing a useful summary that | essentially renders no need to click the provided link? + the | link | | Otherwise I can see why Google and Meta got the law, while | Reddit, Apple news and others don't. | tomComb wrote: | It's just linking | adjav wrote: | Reddit and Apple News _will_ have the law applied to them as | well, since the law doesn 't include a list of sites | affected, just the criteria under which affected sites fall. | quitit wrote: | So when google said 2 companies it was also as disingenuous | as when they said "only linking" | JoshTriplett wrote: | I doubt that's _just_ "don't mention a competitor" (though that | was likely a factor too). Saying "two" is an important point to | emphasize: if this was a national law written to target just | two companies, saying so makes the sentiment clear. And on top | of that, I have the impression that Meta/Facebook has much | lower public approval than Google. | kwar13 wrote: | Canada is a tight oligopoly and they don't like when you can read | anything other than they want you too. | whywhywhydude wrote: | Going a step further, I think google should stop crawling | websites that are paywalled. When I search for something, I want | to see results that I can click on. Not some snippets from NYT, | WSJ, Bloomberg and others which are heavily paywalled. | carlosjobim wrote: | When I search for something I want the best results for the | query, and sometimes those are behind a paywall. | nonameiguess wrote: | At a certain point, if you want a subscription service, why | wouldn't you just do something like suscribe to Bloomberg | News, then get all your news by going directly to their site | rather than going through a search engine or aggregator. If | you're looking at an aggregator, inherently you want to see | many possible sources, including ones you may only read once | a year. Nobody is going to subscribe to hundreds of separate | sources individually just to read them once in a blue moon. | | Ironically, the predatory and terrible academic journal | industry is probably the only thing out there right now that | comes close to getting this right. Rather than expecting | anyone to subscribe to each journal individually, they give a | bulk subscription to an entire publishing service that then | grants access to many journals. | | If someone out there offered a $20 a month service that | granted access to Bloomberg, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, | Economist, WaPost, Financial Times, all in one, I'd gladly | buy that. But there is no way in hell I'm subscribing to all | of those separately. Even if the aggregate price was cheaper, | I wouldn't want to do that. | carlosjobim wrote: | 1. There is much paywalled information online that is not | in the form of a subscription, but instead one-time fees. | | 2. Just because you paid at the paywall, doesn't mean you | have to subscribe for life. You can pay to get the | information you need and then instantly cancel any | subscription. | | > If someone out there offered a $20 a month service that | granted access to Bloomberg, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, | Economist, WaPost, Financial Times, all in one, I'd gladly | buy that. | | PressReader is pretty much this, although the price is $30 | and not $20. | admax88qqq wrote: | If I'm not willing to pay for a paywall then the "best" | content is not behind a paywall, because I won't read it. | | My definition of "best" includes my ability to actually read | the content under my terms. | carlosjobim wrote: | If I ask you what is the best restaurant in town, will you | answer that it's your mommas house because there you always | eat for free? | | Cost has nothing to do with determining the quality of a | search result, and search engines shouldn't discriminate | against paywalled content. But I think it's a good idea to | let users like you check a box to hide paywalled results. | chongli wrote: | There are millions of websites out there that are free | for anyone to read, including this one! Restaurants that | serve free meals are not the norm, so this analogy | doesn't make a lot of sense. If every website was | paywalled and required a subscription, like cable TV | channels, then you might have a point. | carlosjobim wrote: | People use search engines professionally and not only for | entertainment. There is an icebergs worth of important | and valuable information online behind paywalls, not only | articles or news. Information workers use a search engine | to find the information they need, pay the cost if it's | paywalled, and then cancel any subscription after getting | what they needed. | | Long gone are the days of "surfing the web", when most of | us spent our time online just randomly browsing around. | chongli wrote: | I don't see why there couldn't also be a professional | search engine. Academics have Google Scholar which is an | amazing resource for them. A search engine that brought | up high quality resources for professionals would seem to | be pretty useful. It could potentially even have a single | subscription to unlock all of the sites in a network, | rather than individual paywalls at every site. | JoshTriplett wrote: | Checkbox, unchecked by default: | | [ ] I want to see results from sites I'd have to pay to | access | kccqzy wrote: | The obvious problem to this armchair expert "solution" is | that Google doesn't know what I am already paying. I pay | NYT for a subscription, but Google doesn't know that. For | obvious privacy reasons users don't want to tell Google | what sites they already have subscriptions with. And I | don't even log in to Google to do a search so there's no | place to store that information even if I actively wanted | to provide that to Google. | JoshTriplett wrote: | I wasn't presenting it as a perfect solution. I was | observing that many people _don 't_ want to see paywalled | results, some may want to see _all_ of them because they | may choose to pay, some may want to see them because they | plan to use a paywall bypass, and some as you pointed out | may want to see the subset they already pay for but not | others. As a first pass, a binary approach seems better | than nothing, and is simpler to provide than a more | complex user-subscription-specific solution. | pipo234 wrote: | I'd pay a little if we could get rid of the pop ups and | cookie banners, advertisements and click bait content. But | after 30 years we're still missing the infrastructure for | micro payments. | | For news sites and netflix we now have subscriptions shielded | by paywals, which really is incompatible with hyperlinked | sites or search engines. Even if you subscribed to 1000 | services, the experience would probably be horrible. The | internet was designed to be free, but evidently that's not a | good business model if you want to make a living. | carlosjobim wrote: | > But after 30 years we're still missing the infrastructure | for micro payments. | | Sad but true. The closest we have to a solution right now | is PressReader, which is just too expensive in my opinion | at $30 per month. | matbilodeau wrote: | At least the "archive" workaround still works | pessimizer wrote: | It's piracy, though. I'm sure plenty of paywalled outlets | would be happy to see it gone. | jupp0r wrote: | It's not piracy, they explicitly allow this. | renewiltord wrote: | You can easily write this as a Chrome extension if you so | desire. | chroma wrote: | Google isn't circumventing paywalls. Most paywalled sites | whitelist search engines so that their content gets crawled and | more people visit them. | kccqzy wrote: | The open web has deteriorated to such an extent that either | information is paywalled or free but has commercial motivations | behind it (affiliate links, sponsorships). It turns out there's | little free, non-commercial, high quality content on the web. | chongli wrote: | _It turns out there 's little free, non-commercial, high | quality content on the web._ | | I disagree. I think there's a lot of it out there, in the | form of blogs and small forums. It's just really hard to | find, like mining for gold in the Super Pit [1]. You need to | sift through mountains of rubble to find tiny amounts of | gold. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Pit_gold_mine | pipo234 wrote: | True. There is some great content (blogs, OS software, books, | p2p networks, public libraries, academia, government), but by | and large that wasn't created with monetary incentives. | | Could there be a way to sustainably make enough money from | visitors without making it all suck? | kccqzy wrote: | I think there really needs to be a micro-transaction | mechanism on the web, but unfortunately it was needed ten | years ago and there still isn't one. | golem14 wrote: | Yes but the crypto folks didn't do that, they were busy | chasing nfts. | chroma wrote: | There have been a lot of ridiculous things in | cryptocurrency land, but what's wrong with Basic | Attention Token? It has been around for six years and | seems to solve the problem of paying content creators via | microtransactions. The only wrinkle is that finance laws | force everyone to verify their identity with a | government-issued ID before transacting BAT.[1] This is a | problem for all microtransactions, not just | cryptocurrency. | | 1. https://support.brave.com/hc/en- | us/articles/360032158891-Wha... | shadowgovt wrote: | > turns out there's little free, non-commercial, high quality | content on the web. | | Well, sure. Who pays for it? | kccqzy wrote: | No one. That's why I commented to make the point that | Google should not refuse to crawl commercial content. | pessimizer wrote: | Between legacy news organizations complaining about links and the | censorship of news coming from blacklisted areas of the world, | what will social media and news aggregators be left with? | | Also, I have to believe that some of these outlets will go under | without social media traffic. You can get Canadian wire service | content from any US website that decides to publish it. | [deleted] | bdw5204 wrote: | The solution to this problem is for Google, Facebook and other | web sites that link to news to limit links to web sites that | agree that the free traffic they're receiving from extremely | popular web sites is sufficient compensation for linking to them. | In other words, block links to any web site that feels entitled | to be paid for being linked to. | | There are plenty of web sites that will be happy to take the free | traffic and it isn't like it matters to Facebook's bottom line if | their mostly elderly users are arguing over some article from Fox | News (which supports the journalism cartel bill in the US) or | some article from Breitbart (which opposes the journalism cartel | bill). I imagine it won't take long for Murdoch to change his | mind and stop trying to shake down tech companies for the | privilege of sending his media outlets free traffic. | jsnell wrote: | They cannot do that. The law forbids discriminating against any | Canadian news business. If they link to news sites that don't | demand payment but won't link to ones that want to be paid, | it'd be viewed as retaliation. | | The only options are to accept the rigged negotiation process | and pay all news business vastly inflated rates, or to link to | none of them. | Zetice wrote: | Maybe, or maybe the law will be scoped narrowly via the | bench. | andromeduck wrote: | Isn't price discrimination the whole point of having a | private sector? | akira2501 wrote: | > to limit links to web sites that agree that the free traffic | they're receiving from extremely popular web sites is | sufficient compensation for linking to them. | | The problem with this is there's no direct relationship between | the two. So Google and Facebook can arbitrarily decide to | "punish" a paper by demoting or flat out filtering their | content. | | These platforms aren't doing this out of the goodness of their | hearts. They put this content on their platform because it made | their platform more popular and provided value for them, and | now that they've monopolized user attention, they're directly | weaponizing it. | | > There are plenty of web sites that will be happy to take the | free traffic | | So.. it's a race to the bottom. News sources are no longer | selected based upon quality or user demand, but on their | willingness to be used by billion dollar tech giants. I'm sure | the quality of the reporting will be identical. | chongli wrote: | The news sites in Canada are owned by billion dollar media | and telecom companies. Nowhere near the scale of Google & | Facebook, but among the largest companies in Canada. Speaking | as a Canadian, this is very much a protectionist law trying | to prop up an old media business the public no longer has | much interest in. | akira2501 wrote: | Right.. so the post I'm replying to suggests that Google | and Facebook should just drop these larger publishers and | instead abuse smaller publishers who "would just be happy | for the exposure." | | So.. your argument is, because you don't like some media | companies and are willing to speak on behalf of all | Canadians, the market really isn't worth protecting at all? | jeffbee wrote: | Most Canadian media is owned by asset-stripping American private | equity firms, just like American newspapers. They just want to | get paid, and have figured out a particular way that Canadian, | Australian, German, and Californian legislators can be duped into | it. | objektif wrote: | Yeah Google never ever does this. They do not want money they | just work for kisses and they are not evil at all. | tensor wrote: | Every company tries to earn money, that's not a problem. The | problem is when a company tries to legislate themselves to be | owed money, or eliminate competition via various means, that | it becomes a problem. | | Companies should earn my by building good competitive | products. | gwright wrote: | One reason to advocate for a government with minimal power | is to avoid the temptation to legislate preferential | treatment. If the government has been granted more | expansive powers, it is inevitable, and arguably rational, | for those affected to try to steer regulations in a way | that benefits them. | gostsamo wrote: | There is no vacuum in power. If it is not the government | enforcing one mechanism, it will be another player | leveraging another. The fantasy that if it wasn't for the | government, everything would be sunshine and roses should | be brought behind the barn and finished for good. | jxf wrote: | The issue isn't companies doing it as much as it is state- | enforced regulatory capture that prefers specific companies | over others. | mugivarra69 wrote: | more like they shmoozed them to do it vs being duped. | moffkalast wrote: | I don't see how this gets them paid, more like wiped from the | internet entirely? | munk-a wrote: | A fair number of people search on google specifically to get | news on recent events - Google currently captures a decent | portion of those users and keeps them from ever actually | visiting the original sources. Users _want_ that information | though, so unless Google can tell me why the building two | blocks down is currently throwing out a huge plume of smoke I | 'll eventually land on the actual content creator to read the | information. | jeffbee wrote: | Well, their fantasy wishlist is that Google and Meta are | forced to index their junk, rank it at the top, feature it | prominently, present it to any and all visitors, and pay for | both the cost and the privilege. | [deleted] | version_five wrote: | Globe and Mail is apparently owned by a Thompson (one of | Canada's wealthiest families), and the CBC is run by the | government. CTV is owned by Bell Media, part of Canada's | telecom oligopoly. Global news is owned by Corus, a Canadian | company. National Post is owned by Postmedia which is a | publicly traded Canadian company, with majority ownership from | an American PE firm. Is that what you mean? | jeffbee wrote: | Chatham owns dozens of Canadian newspapers via Postmedia, and | dozens of U.S. newspapers via McClatchy. Their operating mode | is the same in both countries: fire all the writers and | editors. | | I thought that Blackstone owned Globe and Mail but it seems | they sold it in 2021 so your info is the current info. | NamTaf wrote: | To be fair, a significant number of Australian legislators are | practically owned by a particular AU/US media firm, so it's no | great surprise that they can be duped/ordered into trying this. | philjohn wrote: | Duped would be a ... charitable ... label. | GeekyBear wrote: | Google would be perfectly free to hire a human being to write | headlines in their own words and then link to articles in the | press discussing that story. | | "Man Bites Dog" More discussion: CBC, National Post, Toronto | Star, CTV, etc. | | However, Google doesn't want to pay human beings, they want to | "borrow' other people's content to make a profit. | | People seem to conflate "indexing your story on our search | engine" with "borrowing your headline and photo for our own | news site". | warning26 wrote: | Are you proposing that the entire concept of a non-human- | curated search engine should be illegal? Seems kind of silly. | munk-a wrote: | It honestly doesn't seem outrageous to me. Just because | this is the direction society has decided to go in doesn't | make the alternative absurd. If you'll recall in the early | age of the internet hand-curated link boards were actually | extremely popular i.e. "I'm Billy and here's a bunch of | really interesting information about sewage treatment" and | then just a spam of links. | | I think there's a very reasonable argument to be made that | Google should simply link to the information and not | extract and re-present the information that would be much | fairer in enabling websites to support themselves. If the | content you're creating is stolen and reposted elsewhere | you're losing that portion of revenue and Google's news | strategy has driven click throughs to the actual articles | way down which reduces ad revenue and discourages | subscription. | | As a general rule, not being willing to entertain a state | other than the way things currently are, is a bad habit to | get into. | GeekyBear wrote: | Did you miss the part where I said people are conflating | indexing a story on a search engine with "borrowing" other | people's content for your own news site? | | The first can be fixed with a simple robots.txt file. | | How do you tell Google they may index your story, but may | not "borrow" your headline or photos for their own news | site? | jsnell wrote: | That's not what the law says at all. You've just made it up. | The actual definition for what's in scope is: | | > (a) the news content, or any portion of it, is reproduced; | or | | > (b) access to the news content, or any portion of it, is | facilitated by any means, including an index, aggregation or | ranking of news content. | | See point b. Simply facilitating access, for example by | linking or having the article in a search index, would be | enough. | | (Also, really smooth move deleting your original toplevel | comment and just moving it to a reply under the highest voted | thread. Not even any pretense that you're replying to | jeffbee, but just cynically trying to get the maximum | visibility for your _entirely made up_ claim.) | jefftk wrote: | I don't think that would exempt them under the law? Have a | look: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/ro | yal-a... | GeekyBear wrote: | There's a ton of international case law saying that a mere | link is not illegal. | jefftk wrote: | We're talking about a new Canadian law. How would case | law be relevant? | | (Laws can make previously legal things illegal.) | GeekyBear wrote: | Laws can also be challenged in court. | phailhaus wrote: | So these news orgs are getting free advertising, and they want to | be paid on top? | tradewinds wrote: | It's not really advertising when the user is specifically | searching for news content. That's like saying the halibut | fisherman is getting free advertising when you go to a | restaurant and ask to see the menu. | [deleted] | phailhaus wrote: | That's not a good analogy because news sites don't sell their | articles to Google, they get paid when users visit their | sites. Google is promoting their websites and actively | directing users to them, for free. Do I need to pay NYT when | I recommend an article to my friends? | tradewinds wrote: | It's certainly not the greatest analogy - it's just meant | to claim that you can't advertise something that someone's | already looking for, including when you only know they're | looking for it because they came to you asking for it. | Google isn't doing any promotion, they're simply forwarding | on the most accurate indexed page according to your query. | Promotion and advertising would be generating demand that | otherwise wouldn't exist, which is not the case in this | scenario. You can argue Google is promoting _one page_ over | another, but for every page that 's at the top, there's a | page that's at the bottom, and so it's not generally | promoting the collective news media in any way. | isykt wrote: | Facebook and Google cache their content and display it on their | own websites, negating the reason for clicking through to the | website where the ad dollars would be generated for the content | creators. | cpncrunch wrote: | That isn't the case for google news. There is just the | article title, and a link to the publisher's website. If you | mean on google search: caching can easily be disabled by | using noarchive. | Tyr42 wrote: | The law also include "indexing" and "ranking" under the | definition of "makes available". So even crawling the sites | requires an agreement now. | Joel_Mckay wrote: | Nothing of value was lost, as peoples feelings about facts is not | news. | | Maybe add a disclaimer to all Sinclair Broadcast Group content | too. | | Thank you, I'll see myself out =) | anderspitman wrote: | The web may never be better than it was about 5 years ago, and | that makes me very sad | cypress66 wrote: | Peak web was probably around 2010 | randcraw wrote: | Make that 25 years ago, before the FAANGs came out. | timbit42 wrote: | Google came out in 1998, 25 years ago. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | I'm not going back to using Alta Vista, no thanks. | pavon wrote: | I wouldn't consider 1998 a peak. There was a local maxima in | 1993, before the September that never ended. Then the rest of | the 90's were exciting because of the rapid growth, but the | actual state of things at the time was pretty messy. I'd | personally put the next peak around 2007. Broadband was | widespread but smartphones were not. Google existed but | hadn't yet purchased DoubleClick. IE6, while not quite dead, | no longer had a stranglehold on web development. Independent | blogs and forums and RSS were still big, and hadn't yet | consolidated with social media. | jewelry wrote: | still like the new internet to be honest. | shadowgovt wrote: | N'ah, I remember that era. Search engines were basically | worthless. Google was the first one to get the formula right. | | Before Google, search engines were basically just doing | keyword matching and so you'd have the issue that every | search for a programming topic landed you on expertsexchange. | Google was the first to start leveraging click-away signal, | and they were able to successfully down-sample keyword- | farmers like that one and their ilk. | chongli wrote: | Search engines were bad in the 90's, but the web was much | smaller and community-driven. Most of the websites people | visited were created by individuals and people linked to | each other to form web rings. | shadowgovt wrote: | I remember. | | It was the worst. Crawling a ring all day to find useful | content was incredibly inconvenient. | TheCaptain4815 wrote: | Totally disagree, LLMs are so much better than search engines | ever were. | [deleted] | okdood64 wrote: | LLMs are a complement to search, not a replacement. | bboygravity wrote: | That kind of proves the point: the internet is more than LLMs | and search engines. | glonq wrote: | Yeah, it's also cryptocurrency and NFT's /s | opportune wrote: | To me the inflection point was the 2016 US election (which also | coincided with Brexit). | | Independent of the elections I think social media websites had | by this time "perfected" engagement-driven algorithmic feeds | and online news had started getting good at optimizing their | content for those purposes. And around this time, anecdotally, | is when I think a lot of older people started taking the | internet more seriously, as real-world services like | Airbnb/Uber/Amazon prime (to be fair, started earlier) became | popular and middle aged people started using social media more. | This, in combination with the polarizing content of the | elections, made the internet into the hostile and echo-chambery | place it is today. And it also attracted a lot more Government | attention leading to things like GDPR (good in theory, bad | inasmuch as it led to the current cookie banner bullshit) and | link taxes. | ars wrote: | I wonder how old you are to think anything changed in 2016. | | To me 2016 was just a continuation of what started before, | there was no inflection then. | | The 2000's are when things started to change, not 2016. And | Obama's first election was when the internet started to be | taken seriously by politicians (2008). It's basically what | gave him the win. | Duwensatzaj wrote: | Cell phones. | | The shift away from desktop and laptops to cell phones is a | major factor as well. | pessimizer wrote: | > To me the inflection point was the 2016 US election (which | also coincided with Brexit.) | | And with the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict. | metabagel wrote: | Do you mean the Russian invasion of sovereign Ukraine | territory? | pessimizer wrote: | I mean what the hell I said. | AlexandrB wrote: | Russian annexed Crimea in 2014. Or are we talking about | "2016-ish"? | pessimizer wrote: | When do you think the 2016 election was held, and when | did the participants in it campaign? | opportune wrote: | Yeah I wanted to mention Euromaidan and Russia increasing | its general hostile activity on the internet (overstated in | the wake of the 2016 election? Yes. Literally something | that verifiably happened with eg various Facebook groups | for divisive political issues run by Russians acting on | behalf of their government? Also yes). I do think | Euromaidan was partially the root cause as it woke Russia | up to the possibility that the internet could be used to | destabilize its various client states as in Euromaidan or | its rivals like the US. | | But a lot of people will debate the actual overall | influence of that vs it being a scapegoat used to | delegitimize the right wing surge at the time; undeniably | even if the right wing surge/political divisiveness trend | was aided by Russian activity, it was still real people who | engaged with it online and voted for the right wing causes. | ruuda wrote: | I think the cookiewalls are older than 5 years, no? | gameman144 wrote: | My read on this is that news organizations are upset that | Google/Facebook are taking profits by providing cached content | that makes people not want to actually click their links. | | If this is the primary concern, though, then wouldn't it make | more sense to draft a law regulating content caching, rather than | the pay-per-click approach? It seems like a law that said "Sites | that serve any content which wasn't part of a 'you can cache me' | section need to pay for that content" would address the concerns | of both parties here. | | This would solve the alleged issue that news organizations are | bringing up, while also making it totally clear what the | consequences are. If you don't want Google to be able to use your | content within search results that's totally fine, but you can't | then _also_ be mad that they don 't _surface_ your content in | search results. | | Seems like letting news site determine what content Google can | cache for its results, and then letting Google determine ranking | based _only_ on that data would be a completely reasonable | compromise. As it stands now, though, Google is directly | incentivized to just never surface these websites, which hurts | everyone involved. | bastawhiz wrote: | > It seems like a law that said "Sites that serve any content | which wasn't part of a 'you can cache me' section need to pay | for that content" would address the concerns of both parties | here. | | Because you can't have your cake and eat it too. If Google | can't cache the whole article, they can't provide search for | the article. That's why publishers are serving the full, | unpaywalled article to Google: how do you index an article you | can't cache? The publishers--today--can simply serve the | paywalled versions to Google. | | The publishers want Google to keep a copy of their data to | offer search services to Google's customers, but then want | Google to pay for the privilege. | josefx wrote: | > If Google can't cache the whole article, they can't provide | search for the article. | | Google can index the articles independently of serving their | entirety to visitors. Might as well claim that wikipedia | can't have articles covering movies without acting as the | worlds largest piracy site. | | > but then want Google to pay for the privilege. | | On the other hand Google wants all the articles for free, but | doesn't have any motivation to share the users or ad | impressions they attract. | jsnell wrote: | > On the other hand Google wants all the articles for free, | but doesn't have any motivation to share the users or ad | impressions they attract. | | AFAIK Google doesn't show ads on Google News, they don't | show ads on news queries, and they send the users to the | news site via the link. There is no revenue to share, and | the users are being shared to the extent that is possible | given they're humans who have free will and will decide | themselves which articles to read and which not. | | > Google can index the articles independently of serving | their entirety to visitors | | I don't know what you're referring to here. AMP? The news | site has to do _extra work_ to enable AMP, and the entire | point of AMP was always the cache. (But the revenue from | the ads on the AMP page goes to the publication, not to | Google). The search cache? The news site can opt out. The | snippet? They can opt out. Images? I 'm pretty sure they | actually have to opt in for that, by emitting specific meta | tags. The title? That is mandatory, but for the simple | reason that you have to give the searcher _something_ or | they won 't click through. | stainablesteel wrote: | it seems like the canadian government wants to use its news as | propaganda in small local regions without the rest of the world | being able to figure it out via searching for it. | | this might also be a leeway for charging the same cost to social | media sites. might this be an insidious form of censorship? | | given the canadian government's strong ties to its government- | funded media, this sounds like it could be concerning. | lordleft wrote: | Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook | providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial | relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd | love some context for this. | WeylandYutani wrote: | Dutch newspapers are back to subscriptions. They're doing | better than ever. If your product is good people will pay for | it. And there will always be a class of people who need | journalism. Politicians, government officials, bankers. | | In hindsight the whole internet bubble looks strange. Nobody | cared about monetisation only users! | LegitShady wrote: | On one hand, yes, it drives traffic. On the other hand, no, | because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can | do that without clicking. | | But realistically this the current Canadian government trying | to shake down google and facebook for money to transfer to the | ailing news industry in canada. The merits of the position for | a link tax are pretty bad, and don't really matter to the issue | at hand. The government already gives hundreds of millions in | grants and tax incentives to make the current journalism | landscape in canada possible, without even looking at CBC the | national broadcaster. | | This is just a shake down job. They see google and facebook | have a ton of money and the government thought they could | threaten them into parting with some of it. The government | doesn't care about the implications of a link tax on the web, | or mutually beneficial relationships, or any of that. It's a | shakedown. | Manuel_D wrote: | > On one hand, yes, it drives traffic. On the other hand, no, | because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they can | do that without clicking. | | Then the solution is to modify your `robots.txt` file to | prohibit these snippets. | | Of course, no-one actually does this because they're well | aware that the headlines are what drives attention and | clicks. | skeeter2020 wrote: | >> because lots of people just read headlines and maybe they | can do that without clicking. | | I agree; I'd argue you don't have much of a valuable service | if all users need is a headline. Print media needs to give up | the traditional shallow breadth fueled by advertising and go | niche, and go deep. Cable TV should learn this lesson as | well. | LegitShady wrote: | I think traditional media needs to go deep and needs to go | local. | | If I open up the local paper and see associated press | articles that's not the right content for them. I can see | that anywhere, probably before the newspaper is delivered. | | It needs to be local journalism about things that matter. | Actual local issues, hard journalism about local politics | and city hall and whatnot. That's what's missing from the | big sites and when it is there its sort of after the fact. | They need to be investigating not just repeating press | releases. | | I don't know about cable tv - its essentially a syndication | not a local thing. I think the internet will kill it off. | Now that the lines to the home aren't a moat around being a | cable company every video website is the new cable company. | They need to have content you can't get on the internet and | I don't think that's going to happen. As old people die who | couldn't adapt to internet tv, so cable will die. | chongli wrote: | Like the way a starving person's body consumes their own | muscles, the local newspapers in Canada have laid off all | their journalists. As a kid, I used to deliver the local | newspaper to make a bit of money. I remember those | Saturdays when the paper was like an inch thick and | weighed a ton. | | Nowadays, it looks more like a newsletter than a | newspaper. My late roommate subscribed to the local paper | up until the end of his life. At that point, he was | really only interested in the crosswords and sudokus. | JimtheCoder wrote: | Just Canadian politicians being Canadian politicians...that's | really all the context you need. | donmcronald wrote: | Canadian media has always enjoyed some protectionism from the | government. It's old, entrenched players wanting, and getting, | something for nothing. The people that control our media and | telecommunications in Canada could fit in a compact car. This | doesn't have anything to do with the average person. It's all | business and lobbying. | gloryjulio wrote: | > The people that control our media and telecommunications in | Canada could fit in a compact car. | | Spot on. In Canada it's about the handful of the oligarchs | who have control over almost everything. It has nothing to do | with the average plebs | dmix wrote: | And now CBC won't be on Google, Twitter (over gov funding | label), or Facebook(?) | | I won't be surprised if we (the taxpayers) end up having to | support them even more. Who knows maybe they'll have to | pass more tax subsidies for the other major players too. | musha68k wrote: | Look at the constant internet censorship pressures in the UK. | | The apple doesn't fall far from the tree unfortunately. | glonq wrote: | > Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook | providing links to their content? | | To paraphrase a great Canadian -- _Yes they probably do. And | don 't call me Shirley._ | Alupis wrote: | > Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook | providing links to their content? | | Probably depends. | | In some cases, Google scrapes the interesting bits and people | never click through to the host site. In other cases, Google | has provided a way for people to circumvent paywalls. | | Some of this was a strategy by news organizations - but it | seems it might not work long term. I, for one, click through to | far fewer Wikipedia articles now that Google includes the | synopsis embedded in search results... | duringmath wrote: | Liberal politicians will pass any law seen as harmful to US | tech companies consequences be damned. | | It's like California but on a national level, still not quite | as insane thankfully. | jug6ernaut wrote: | Which state are these big US tech companies based in again? I | may have missed it. | pyrale wrote: | They wanted to move to Texas, but unfortunately Texas hates | electricity. | ecshafer wrote: | Delaware? | jabits wrote: | California gave birth to these companies, and has been, and | remains one of our nations's primary economic engines, | despite the shenanigans of a few attention-seeking public | figures... | duringmath wrote: | I agree | hotsauceror wrote: | This same thing happened in Spain, several years ago. The | government passed a law charging google for linking to Spanish | media sites. Google said "gracias, pero no" and stopped linking | to those sites. The publishers immediately got upset about the | loss of traffic to their websites. | | Mike Masnick's schadenfreude alone could have powered a small | nation for a week. | reaperducer wrote: | _Surely news publications benefit more from Google /Facebook | providing links to their content?_ | | Actually, no. | | It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but | for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and | Global TV don't need freepub from Google. | | One example among many: Most people see the headline - the | headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article | from a paid journalist on a staff of other professionals with | families to feed - and then move on. | | Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has | value. Without anyone clicking through to the web site, Google | is getting the value from the headline, and contributing | nothing to the web site in return. | | It's like saying that when Google steals content from web sites | and presents it as an answer card in search results that the | web site somehow gets something out of it. That's completely | false. The only one getting anything out of it is Google. | petercooper wrote: | A headline's job is to provide enough information to | encourage someone to read more if the story is relevant to | them. If someone doesn't want to read on, no value is lost. | | News sites _could_ get rid of their <title> and OpenGraph | tags, and people could share the raw story URLs without any | context. No-one would click through as they'd have no idea | where the URL went, though, so news sites provide these | titles willingly and have full control over how they write | them or what level of detail they share. | | The idea that headlines like "Queen Elizabeth has died", | "Madonna discharged from hospital", or "Interest rates go up" | replace the need for the rest of the story for any | substantial part of the target audience seems far fetched to | me, and if the meat of the story is given away in the | og:description.. they wrote it! | dmayle wrote: | This is the most ridiculous take on this that I've ever seen. | Next you're going to say that newspaper stands need to pay a | charge to the newspaper each time someone walks by their | stall (or buys gum, for example). They have seen the | headline, and then moved on. | | Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has | value. Without anyone buying that newspaper, the newspaper | stand has got value from the headline, and contributed | nothing to the newspaper publisher in return. | | The reality is that headlines are advertisements for | articles. That's why there are headline writers in the first | place. Make a better advertisement, get more sales. | | In the case of Google, publishing links with headlines means | publishing free ads for that website. The website most | certainly benefits from that relationship, if they didn't, | they would just use robots.txt to block Google indexing their | website, which someone has always been free to do. | | The real problem is that newspapers would just like to take a | percentage of Google revenue, because they're a big company. | JamisonM wrote: | This newspaper stand argument is really, really bad. The | headlines of the physical newspaper on the front page are | for the purposes of advertising the newspaper.. and the | newspaper stand sells the newspapers - that's a big | contribution to the newspaper business! | 6D794163636F756 wrote: | Yeah, the definition of news content being "news content | means content -- in any format, including an audio or | audiovisual format -- that reports on, investigates or | explains current issues or events of public interest and | includes such content that an Indigenous news outlet makes | available by means of Indigenous storytelling. (contenu de | nouvelles)" seems overly broad but I doubt they intend for | headlines to be included. | | I think the bill will lead to further litigation, | specifically if a headline counts as reporting or | explaining. I doubt a headline can investigate. | | It does also seem to put a limit on a platform's ability to | negotiate which is worrying. After 3 rounds of negotiations | an arbiter can come in and decide what is a fair price and | companies are not allowed to treat different news | organizations differently. This seems to have room to abuse | for me. | regnard wrote: | I agree with this take-- and this is probably why Google | and Meta were the only companies included. What about | Reddit, Twitter, (and even HN)? | | The counterpoint here is that this bill is very | protectionist in nature and aims to give something to the | Canadian news & media industry. | adjav wrote: | Oh no, it's not just Google and Meta. That's how it's | being presented, but it's actually whoever the CRTC wants | to charge. They can and will change the list at any time, | with no need for oversight. | reaperducer wrote: | _The real problem is that newspapers would just like to | take a percentage of Google revenue, because they 're a big | company._ | | If that's the case, let Google do its own reporting and | write its own headlines. It's not like it doesn't have the | money. Problem solved. | JoshTriplett wrote: | Then Google would probably get antitrust complaints from | including their own news but not competitors' news sites. | scarface_74 wrote: | That would be a great outcome for Google wouldn't it? | Just cover national news using paid reporters and capture | all of the ad revenue. | pyrale wrote: | > That would be a great outcome for Google wouldn't it? | Just cover national news using paid reporters and capture | all of the ad revenue. | | They already capture most of the ad revenue. | | And Google is notoriously bad when it comes to paying | humans to investigate issues, as shown by their absent | customer service. | musha68k wrote: | Do you remember actual newsstands? | reaperducer wrote: | _Do you remember actual newsstands?_ | | I do. I remember when the newspaper was 10C/. | | The guy working the stand didn't let you stand in front of | it and read all the headlines in every page of every | newspaper and magazine for free. | | "I'm only reading the headlines" would get you a slap | upside the head. | Manuel_D wrote: | Quite the contrary: the news stands would have the front | page displayed quite prominently precisely so that you | _could_ read the headlines of the main stories to attract | the interest of passerbys: https://p.turbosquid.com/ts- | thumb/0m/ePJxnz/tlmgVado/news_st... | | If outlets don't want the headlines scraped and | displayed, then they're free to modify their `robots.txt` | file accordingly. But they don't because they're well | aware that this would reduce, not improve, their bottom | line. | [deleted] | Marsymars wrote: | Well then, maybe the law should be a headline tax rather than | a link tax. As currently written, Google/Facebook would be | free to continue providing headlines that don't link to the | sources. | danbtl wrote: | You might be underestimating the amount of traffic Google | sends to publishers through Google News. Anecdotally, I get | Android notifications from CBC, Global, etc. through Google | News daily and do sometimes click on them. | reaperducer wrote: | _You might be underestimating the amount of traffic Google | sends to publishers through Google News._ | | I have worked for two major newspaper companies. I might | know a little bit about this. | danbtl wrote: | Could you share the percentage of traffic coming from | Google News, roughly? | tenpies wrote: | Pablo Rodriguez, is that you? | | For those unfamiliar, Pablo Rodriguez is the _Minister of | Canadian Heritage_ under whose auspices all these censorship | and control schemes are being pushed forward. | | Ironically, Pablo Rodriguez is the son of an Argentine | Peronista (the far-left populism that cripples Argentina to | this day). The family fled the country when the war broke | out. Pablo was old enough to see first hands what happens | when there is no free independent press, and now he's eagerly | fostering those same conditions onto Canada. | scarface_74 wrote: | How much would Google be hurt if it just stopped indexing | news sites? | pgrote wrote: | >Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That | has value. Without anyone clicking through to the web site, | Google is getting the value from the headline, and | contributing nothing to the web site in return. | | So the solution Google is proposing works out for everyone. | Canadian news sites can ensure people go to their site for | headlines and Google can no longer show information for those | sites. The Canadian news sites should see increased revenue | in terms of subscriptions and advertisements. | jsnell wrote: | > The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from | Google. | | So have those publications opted out of search and Google | News? If not, it's pretty clear that they're getting more | benefit from those links than they're losing to people | "reading the headline and getting all they needed from it". | | I assume these news organizations don't even bother writing | the article, right? Because your story obviously applies | equally well to their own site. Users will open the frontpage | of the site, read the expertly crafted headline, and leave. | barbazoo wrote: | Then there surely is a source for that somewhere. Otherwise | it's just as fair to assume it's not a mutually beneficial | relationship. | joegahona wrote: | The source would be the organic-traffic and Facebook | analytics for all those news publications. Whatever it is | now, won't this take it to 0%? | | I feel like a similar thing was tried in Europe somewhere a | few years ago and then quickly ditched, because all the | publications saw their traffic crater. | | Looks like something similar was enacted in Australia, and | Google/Facbook settled: | https://www.reuters.com/technology/australia-says-law- | making... | | And an update from Google's blog from 4 hours ago: | https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach- | initiat... | ingen0s wrote: | Is Apple News affected by this? | photochemsyn wrote: | Not a problem. Go to ChatGPT and ask it to tell you the top ten | Canadian media outlets. You can also ask for the top ten left- | leaning, right-leaning, and tech/sci/engineering outlets. Then go | to Wikipedia to get the urls for each. Bookmark all the sites and | write a little Python scraper to get all the headlines each day. | Then, say goodbye to Alphabet and Meta. | timbit42 wrote: | Why not just use RSS/Atom? | ChrisArchitect wrote: | related: the official post from Google | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36523516 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-06-29 23:00 UTC)