Google News Showcase Launches in Australia(blog.google)
blog.google
Google News Showcase Launches in Australia
https://blog.google/products/news/google-news-showcase-launches-australia/
57 comments
>Not only your traffic is now tied to Google, but also your revenue. You are double screwed as a single organization. As soon as many organizations are in, it'd be hard for them to speak about any Google practices (guess where the money comes from). Then, it's only downhill from there.
we're already here. Google ranking/deranking makes or breaks your business. That's already reality especially for these news sites who live and die off of clicks for today's news.
In this case at least it requires google to pay them something.
we're already here. Google ranking/deranking makes or breaks your business. That's already reality especially for these news sites who live and die off of clicks for today's news.
In this case at least it requires google to pay them something.
Except Google doesn't downrank content critical of Google or Alphabet. I even got notification-based news, via the Google app, about the Google union and this one article about Waymo's mistakes[0]. Google downranking critical content would get them regulated in so many countries if there was ample proof of it happening.
With this new agreement, actually bad-mouthing Google will put pressure on the employees and execs handing the Australia deal and adds the element of human emotion which was previously absent.
0: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/googles-waymo-risks-rep...
With this new agreement, actually bad-mouthing Google will put pressure on the employees and execs handing the Australia deal and adds the element of human emotion which was previously absent.
0: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/googles-waymo-risks-rep...
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Google’s PR on this whole thing is a mess. There’s no explanation of how this fits in to their previous ads and videos that threatened to pull search from Australia. And even that was badly explained. I wish they would pick a stance and clearly say what they mean.
I wish they could handle this like a professional company and not drag their users into the argument. They really tried their best to leverage their platform to threaten their users into being worried enough to petition.
Google threatening to pull search from Australia was the most obvious bluff I've ever seen from any company. A total embarrassment, everyone saw right through it.
If they actually did something like that, they could kiss their GCP, Google Docs, etc... contracts goodbye. Especially with government customers. They'd lose an entire country not just for search, but just about every other service they offer.
>GCP, Google Docs, etc... contracts goodbye. Especially with government customers
They've already done that, Google's market share in government is approaching zero. They just aren't a B2B company, unlike Microsoft
They've already done that, Google's market share in government is approaching zero. They just aren't a B2B company, unlike Microsoft
Government procurement processes are allergic to buying products. They insist on purchasing solutions.
From what I understand of the law, they wouldn't be able to offer those services anyway. The law essentially boils down to: "The following services (Google and Facebook for now) must pay per hyperlink for anything newsworthy."
It's not a bluff.
They'd just redirect users to the google.com site. So they'd keep roughly the same revenue, just remove the Australian operations.
They'd just redirect users to the google.com site. So they'd keep roughly the same revenue, just remove the Australian operations.
> There’s no explanation of how this fits in to their previous ads and videos that threatened to pull search from Australia.
That's because the threat to pull search from Australia was just bluff and bullshit.
Amazingly it worked - I've had a number of people come up to me in panic they would lose access to ad words (that was a business owner), their pictures, their contacts, and gmail. Turns out bluff and bullshit is all you need to make ScoMo from marketing (Australian's moniker for their current prime minister) do a 180. That's politics, I guess. To be fair, if though losing access to those Goole services was a real possibility I'd be in a panic too.
But it was never going to happen. As far as I know, the servers that handle all of those things aren't based in Australia now. All Google have to do is remove their legal presence out of reach of the Australian government. Unless the government resorted to some great firewall of china style thing, all of those things would continue to work, and the revenue streams they generated would be unaffected. The only change is no local people on the ground, no GST, and no paying the piddling amount of corporate tax they deign to give us.
> I wish they would pick a stance and clearly say what they mean.
Oh, they picked a stance long ago, and they haven't moved since. 6 months ago Google said they would pay for some news [0], before the draft code was first published. I don't think sharing revenue from a news.google.com.au or whatever it is going to be called now was ever a major issue for them.
Their stance is about a different line in the sand. The newspapers have asked their politician mates, the LNP, to pass a law to force Google to give them money from their search engine business.
Just how badly on the nose this is is not obvious because another piece of bullshit, this time finely finessed by ScoMo himself, is they've come up with some definition of a "digital platform" that somehow captures Google. They didn't. They can't make some general rule like "if you link to someone you have to pay them" - because it's farcical, capturing every web site out there. They can't claim Google primarily makes their ad revenue from newspaper links, because they are a tiny fraction of the results returned by most searches. They can't claim Google is stealing stuff because Google respects robots.txt so the newspapers can turn off Google search indexing at any time if they so wish, and they can't use copyright because the 1 or 2 sentences Google quotes are fair use. So in the draft legislation they don't devote a lot of words defining what a "digital platform" is and then leave the decision of which companies fit that definition to a Judge. In a fine act of obfuscation they do have lots of words defining a "digital platform" - but the companies who have to pay the newspapers are listed by name in a schedule that is at the sole discretion of the minister, and the legislation specifically bans legal challenges to his decision making all those words irrelevant. It is the most blatant exhibition of crony capitalism I've seen in a while.
Google has drawn a line in the sand at "you can force us to pay for links that you say in robots.txt we can index, and are publicly available for free to everyone else". That has not changed, and I'm guessing they would either stop indexing newspapers or remove their legal presence from Australia before they’d let the newspapers put their snouts into the search ad revenue stream. All they've done here is say "we will build a better site than news.google.com.au, dedicated to news, and share ad revenue that it attracts".
If you think this site will do any better than G+, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Rupert Murdock is not known for buying bridges, so if they government accepts this it will acceptance of total defeat from him. Sadly, for Rupert ScoMo from marketing is making conciliatory noises. I think it's finally dawned just how strong Google’s "we will just remove our legal presence" option made their position. Google does have a reasonable presence in Australia (maps.google.com is was an Australian company they purchased, and development is still done here), so moving would be a pain, but it would have stuff all effect on the one thing that really matters - their revenue from Australia. ScoMo is just waking up to the fact he's been played for a moron by Rupert, again, just as Trump did before him, and this offer is at most is a face saving fig from Google. I hope he's grateful they gave him one.
[0] https://www.news.com.au/technology/e5abf473f1091188f78d77589...
That's because the threat to pull search from Australia was just bluff and bullshit.
Amazingly it worked - I've had a number of people come up to me in panic they would lose access to ad words (that was a business owner), their pictures, their contacts, and gmail. Turns out bluff and bullshit is all you need to make ScoMo from marketing (Australian's moniker for their current prime minister) do a 180. That's politics, I guess. To be fair, if though losing access to those Goole services was a real possibility I'd be in a panic too.
But it was never going to happen. As far as I know, the servers that handle all of those things aren't based in Australia now. All Google have to do is remove their legal presence out of reach of the Australian government. Unless the government resorted to some great firewall of china style thing, all of those things would continue to work, and the revenue streams they generated would be unaffected. The only change is no local people on the ground, no GST, and no paying the piddling amount of corporate tax they deign to give us.
> I wish they would pick a stance and clearly say what they mean.
Oh, they picked a stance long ago, and they haven't moved since. 6 months ago Google said they would pay for some news [0], before the draft code was first published. I don't think sharing revenue from a news.google.com.au or whatever it is going to be called now was ever a major issue for them.
Their stance is about a different line in the sand. The newspapers have asked their politician mates, the LNP, to pass a law to force Google to give them money from their search engine business.
Just how badly on the nose this is is not obvious because another piece of bullshit, this time finely finessed by ScoMo himself, is they've come up with some definition of a "digital platform" that somehow captures Google. They didn't. They can't make some general rule like "if you link to someone you have to pay them" - because it's farcical, capturing every web site out there. They can't claim Google primarily makes their ad revenue from newspaper links, because they are a tiny fraction of the results returned by most searches. They can't claim Google is stealing stuff because Google respects robots.txt so the newspapers can turn off Google search indexing at any time if they so wish, and they can't use copyright because the 1 or 2 sentences Google quotes are fair use. So in the draft legislation they don't devote a lot of words defining what a "digital platform" is and then leave the decision of which companies fit that definition to a Judge. In a fine act of obfuscation they do have lots of words defining a "digital platform" - but the companies who have to pay the newspapers are listed by name in a schedule that is at the sole discretion of the minister, and the legislation specifically bans legal challenges to his decision making all those words irrelevant. It is the most blatant exhibition of crony capitalism I've seen in a while.
Google has drawn a line in the sand at "you can force us to pay for links that you say in robots.txt we can index, and are publicly available for free to everyone else". That has not changed, and I'm guessing they would either stop indexing newspapers or remove their legal presence from Australia before they’d let the newspapers put their snouts into the search ad revenue stream. All they've done here is say "we will build a better site than news.google.com.au, dedicated to news, and share ad revenue that it attracts".
If you think this site will do any better than G+, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Rupert Murdock is not known for buying bridges, so if they government accepts this it will acceptance of total defeat from him. Sadly, for Rupert ScoMo from marketing is making conciliatory noises. I think it's finally dawned just how strong Google’s "we will just remove our legal presence" option made their position. Google does have a reasonable presence in Australia (maps.google.com is was an Australian company they purchased, and development is still done here), so moving would be a pain, but it would have stuff all effect on the one thing that really matters - their revenue from Australia. ScoMo is just waking up to the fact he's been played for a moron by Rupert, again, just as Trump did before him, and this offer is at most is a face saving fig from Google. I hope he's grateful they gave him one.
[0] https://www.news.com.au/technology/e5abf473f1091188f78d77589...
So how do I (as an Aussie) use it, or see it?
I couldn't find a link in the annoucement blog post. So I Googled for "Google News showcase" but.. no link there. Maybe I had to click the "news" tab/link above the search results- but nope, this just shows me the old style results, articles one after the other.
Maybe it's an app? I searched the playstore, but only saw "Google news" which isn't updated since 15 Jan. I gave it a go anyway, but it didn't show the Showcase style anything like the blog post.
Makes me think maybe this isn't really for the users.
I couldn't find a link in the annoucement blog post. So I Googled for "Google News showcase" but.. no link there. Maybe I had to click the "news" tab/link above the search results- but nope, this just shows me the old style results, articles one after the other.
Maybe it's an app? I searched the playstore, but only saw "Google news" which isn't updated since 15 Jan. I gave it a go anyway, but it didn't show the Showcase style anything like the blog post.
Makes me think maybe this isn't really for the users.
> The panels will appear across Google News on Android, iOS and the mobile web, and in Discover on iOS, bringing high-value traffic to a publisher’s site.
Sounds like it's only in Google News on mobile for now.
(No clue why that's buried in the middle of the article.)
Sounds like it's only in Google News on mobile for now.
(No clue why that's buried in the middle of the article.)
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It seems to me that people are completely misunderstanding this. It's a product that already existed in some other countries. It has nothing to do with showing news sites in search results, or more generally with that Australian law.
Though I am a bit confused, because it looks like they already said two months ago that they had Australian publications signed up. What's actually new here?
Though I am a bit confused, because it looks like they already said two months ago that they had Australian publications signed up. What's actually new here?
So News Showcase appears to be their end run around reality that they need to pay for news content they scrape with Search: They rolled it out with a plan to pay publishers to be a part of it, including the ability to use the content in Search, while claiming they are not actually paying for Search content.
But the biggest news is just that Australia called Google's bluff, and is going to pay up for the content they scrape.
But the biggest news is just that Australia called Google's bluff, and is going to pay up for the content they scrape.
I don’t understand where you are getting this from. This is not stopping the scraping of news sites that do not participate, so it cannot be payment for scraping or showing the site in search results.
It fulfills basically none of the requirements of the law. This is not letting the news sites name their price. I do not think there is any promise that every news org is guaranteed to be able to participate. This is not giving them the advance info on algorithm changes.
And Australia is not the first country they rolled this out in. This already exists elsewhere, in countries that did not try to come up with laws so Draconian that Google threatened to leave.
I bet that Murdoch etc do not consider this any kind of victory. They will continue pressing for the law.
It fulfills basically none of the requirements of the law. This is not letting the news sites name their price. I do not think there is any promise that every news org is guaranteed to be able to participate. This is not giving them the advance info on algorithm changes.
And Australia is not the first country they rolled this out in. This already exists elsewhere, in countries that did not try to come up with laws so Draconian that Google threatened to leave.
I bet that Murdoch etc do not consider this any kind of victory. They will continue pressing for the law.
I see it as Google's attempt to offer a compromise. I agree that Australia probably isn't backing down, but it's clear Google knows it is going to have to pay one way or the other.
I think the curation and the algorithm-driven nature of the news is responsible for the great disinformation and discord we see in society today.
At the end of the day most news is just information, usually it was done on print, of course different sources can paint a different picture but now we have such intense analytics it's possible to figure how much money you can make printing a rape story; you may even want people to get raped as it's a story that yields the best value! Profiting off human suffering has become commonplace, a terrorist story might yield significant amounts of clicks and ad revenue, with each organisation adding their own spin to maximize the profit (ads, data, clicks, engagement)
Really, it'd be nice to redefine how news works entirely, but I doubt that would happen this century sadly.
Real journalism is really hard to come by these days, even the most respectable soruces often fall short and I can't name a single source that I'd consider to be world class.
It's best to not even read the news, very little interesting information gets published there anyway.
At the end of the day most news is just information, usually it was done on print, of course different sources can paint a different picture but now we have such intense analytics it's possible to figure how much money you can make printing a rape story; you may even want people to get raped as it's a story that yields the best value! Profiting off human suffering has become commonplace, a terrorist story might yield significant amounts of clicks and ad revenue, with each organisation adding their own spin to maximize the profit (ads, data, clicks, engagement)
Really, it'd be nice to redefine how news works entirely, but I doubt that would happen this century sadly.
Real journalism is really hard to come by these days, even the most respectable soruces often fall short and I can't name a single source that I'd consider to be world class.
It's best to not even read the news, very little interesting information gets published there anyway.
Contrarily, you have to have an algorithm for searching the web. Even if you sort results only chronologically, you have to determine what news to show for the search "<topic> news", which is going to be an algorithm.
But news has always been curated and algorithm-driven, it was just a human editor deciding whether or not certain stories ended up in this sunday's newspaper based on factors like 'do our readers want to see this', 'will this headline catch the eye of passersby at the news stand', etc. The only difference in the digital age is the access to all news from all sources at a moment's notice - so instead of having to pay to read the news from a single publication a day, you can curate your own viewership to be the most interesting articles from any newspapers for free. In practice, this means that every article, not just the front page headline, needs to now be optimized to sound shocking or interesting.
But news has always been curated and algorithm-driven, it was just a human editor deciding whether or not certain stories ended up in this sunday's newspaper based on factors like 'do our readers want to see this', 'will this headline catch the eye of passersby at the news stand', etc. The only difference in the digital age is the access to all news from all sources at a moment's notice - so instead of having to pay to read the news from a single publication a day, you can curate your own viewership to be the most interesting articles from any newspapers for free. In practice, this means that every article, not just the front page headline, needs to now be optimized to sound shocking or interesting.
The recent-and-related threads on this (there are a lot of them) can be accessed via https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
It reads to me as though Google blinked. I'm sure somewhere, Rupert Murdoch is popping champagne bottles paid for by his ever increasing media in the Australian media bubble.
Google had to blink sooner or later. It would be a loss for them if they were blocked from the Aussie market and other alternatives like Bing, DDG became popular.
That could lead to a dominoes scenario where other countries realised they could get by too without the mighty Google.
Those of us that need Google for searching for weird code snippets and the like (though Google seems increasingly failing in the battle against SEO spam) could just use a US VPN. Most people would get by fine on DDG.
That could lead to a dominoes scenario where other countries realised they could get by too without the mighty Google.
Those of us that need Google for searching for weird code snippets and the like (though Google seems increasingly failing in the battle against SEO spam) could just use a US VPN. Most people would get by fine on DDG.
Wouldn't the hyperlink tax apply to Bing too?
This is my take as well. Google will sooner run at a loss in certain countries if it means not giving other competitors so much as an inch. Ads are their kingdom. They will protect it at all costs, even if that is giving up some revenue.
What I am waiting to see next is, how will other countries/industries respond? Some countries may institute the same thing as Australia. Other industries may try to take a cut as well.
What I am waiting to see next is, how will other countries/industries respond? Some countries may institute the same thing as Australia. Other industries may try to take a cut as well.
I'm not seeing any Murdoch rags listed in the article though?
So is this Google trying to navigate around Australia's proposed changes, or did Google blink and decide not to pull out?
50/50? I think this first step is Google going "fuck you, we'll create our own curated news service and we'll pay a bunch of independent media on our own terms". But it's still probably just a matter of time until it's murdoch wall-to-wall
I’m not sure of the details but apparently our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, had a “fruitful discussion” with Google yesterday...
The Australian PM is from a marketing background so there’s a fair chance the deal changed so Australian tax payers are now paying Google to pay Murdoch media.
In the end he'll always be Scotty from marketing.
I looked up every newspaper in the list, and I don't see any evident connections to Murdoch (which I found surprising). Am I wrong?
The whole thing is corrupt nonsense.
Morrison has been in Murdochs pocket his entire career.
It's shamless corruption that is damaging Australian Domocracy and our reputation.
Morrison has been in Murdochs pocket his entire career.
It's shamless corruption that is damaging Australian Domocracy and our reputation.
Good thing google aren’t evil
Was your comment tongue-in-cheek?
Because it seemed pretty obvious to me, but you are getting heavily downvoted, and I am usually the one who is very oblivious to sarcasm/tongue-in-cheek in writing. Which makes me doubt my assumption about your comment.
Just wanted to make sure I understood the comment correctly.
Because it seemed pretty obvious to me, but you are getting heavily downvoted, and I am usually the one who is very oblivious to sarcasm/tongue-in-cheek in writing. Which makes me doubt my assumption about your comment.
Just wanted to make sure I understood the comment correctly.
no one has a monopoly on being evil. both players can be wrong
If you're referring to Google's old motto "Don't be evil", then FYI that got dropped years ago: https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
Do you have a source for this claim or is this just speculation?
This is an interesting development in that the news services they have signed seem to be those not owned by Murdoch, i.e. left-leaning Fairfax and Schwartz Media mastheads. This could be about making sure the first people to make some money out of this are the competitors of those asking for it.
Fairfax is definitely not left leaning anymore, they're owned by Nine Entertainment which was strong ties to the Liberal government.
"AUSTRALIA’S MEDIA is more concentrated than in some countries that are under dictatorships, such as Turkey and Russia. The ownership and management of practically all of Australia’s print and television media, with exception to Network 10, have links to the Liberal Party. News Corp, chaired by Rupert Murdoch and majority-owned by the Murdoch family, owns around two-thirds of the print media and is a majority stakeholder in Foxtel and Sky News.
Nine Entertainment, which was established by the Liberal-linked Packer family and is chaired by former Liberal member Peter Costello, owns the Nine Network, about a third of Australia’s newspaper publications and subscription television service Stan. Seven West Media, which is majority-owned and chaired by Kerry Stokes, another Liberal supporter, owns Channel 7 and any major newspaper publications that are not owned by News Corp or the Nine Entertainment.
Ita Buttrose, another person with links to the Liberal Party, is chairperson of the ABC. Although most of Australia’s media is owned and run by Liberal supporters, there have been times when Australia’s media wasn't biased."
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/t...
"AUSTRALIA’S MEDIA is more concentrated than in some countries that are under dictatorships, such as Turkey and Russia. The ownership and management of practically all of Australia’s print and television media, with exception to Network 10, have links to the Liberal Party. News Corp, chaired by Rupert Murdoch and majority-owned by the Murdoch family, owns around two-thirds of the print media and is a majority stakeholder in Foxtel and Sky News.
Nine Entertainment, which was established by the Liberal-linked Packer family and is chaired by former Liberal member Peter Costello, owns the Nine Network, about a third of Australia’s newspaper publications and subscription television service Stan. Seven West Media, which is majority-owned and chaired by Kerry Stokes, another Liberal supporter, owns Channel 7 and any major newspaper publications that are not owned by News Corp or the Nine Entertainment.
Ita Buttrose, another person with links to the Liberal Party, is chairperson of the ABC. Although most of Australia’s media is owned and run by Liberal supporters, there have been times when Australia’s media wasn't biased."
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/t...
"former Liberal member Peter Costello" considerably undereggs the situation.
He was deputy federal leader of the Liberals for 13 years, 11 of those as Treasurer in Government. He remained a powerful factional leader for years after that, and as far as I'm aware is still a party member.
He was deputy federal leader of the Liberals for 13 years, 11 of those as Treasurer in Government. He remained a powerful factional leader for years after that, and as far as I'm aware is still a party member.
To be fair though the Liberal party is hardly “right wing” and is more like the centrist faction of the US Democratic Party.
I probably wouldn't use US politics to calibrate my Left <-> Right axis.
Edit: As an Australian
Edit: As an Australian
The Liberal party is definitely right wing. It's the party of religious conservatives and big business. The centrist faction of the US Dems are right wing.
Fairfax is right-leaning. Schwartz Media certainly at least publishes some leftists and progressives.
This sounds like a way for google to control who gets publish news articles across their services where google will select the sources they like.
So basically if google doesn't like your organization, you don't get a place on this platform. Of course, it is their platform so this is within their rights, but I don't feel comfortable with google getting to promote some news sources over others based on arbitrary criteria. This is problematic when considering the size of audience google can reach.
So basically if google doesn't like your organization, you don't get a place on this platform. Of course, it is their platform so this is within their rights, but I don't feel comfortable with google getting to promote some news sources over others based on arbitrary criteria. This is problematic when considering the size of audience google can reach.
Australia is to blame for this whole saga.
You can fault Google in a hundred other places, but this is 100% on Murdoch and the Australian gov for forcing Google into a corner where they could not display neutral results.
You can fault Google in a hundred other places, but this is 100% on Murdoch and the Australian gov for forcing Google into a corner where they could not display neutral results.
This is a great point. It’s a conversation about the place these companies should hold in our lives, in democracy and their ability to control information. I wish people would admit that directly and focus on that discussion.
Instead I see unproductive and backward conversations saying that google should pay publishers when in fact google brings more value to publishers via clicks than publishers bring to google. This line of thinking is missing the primary implications in my opinion.
Instead I see unproductive and backward conversations saying that google should pay publishers when in fact google brings more value to publishers via clicks than publishers bring to google. This line of thinking is missing the primary implications in my opinion.
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Meaning no shade, since this has probably been launched on a moment’s notice, but the current list of publications isn’t that impressive - none of the big names are there, half are subscriber paywalled, and the Conversation is a Creative Commons enterprise; I don’t think their funding model relies on this kind of traffic.
Listed are: The Canberra Times, The Illawarra Mercury, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The New Daily, InDaily and The Conversation.
Listed are: The Canberra Times, The Illawarra Mercury, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The New Daily, InDaily and The Conversation.
What is this shit? I thought they were pulling out of Australia
Not only your traffic is now tied to Google, but also your revenue. You are double screwed as a single organization. As soon as many organizations are in, it'd be hard for them to speak about any Google practices (guess where the money comes from). Then, it's only downhill from there.
Old media had a last chance to re-invent their business model. Now they are officially dead.