Google has started targeting Australians with pop-up ads that link to an open letter that contains “misinformation,” the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said, as the tech company campaigns against a proposed code that would force it to share advertising money with media companies.
The international tech giant is waging a campaign against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which at the request of Treasurer of Australia Josh Frydenberg, has developed a mandatory code that would require Google to share a portion of its multimillion-dollar advertising revenue with Australian media organizations and newspapers.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 100 regional and rural newspapers have shut down or stopped printing, and hundreds of journalists have been made redundant as advertising revenue has dropped.
Photo: AFP
Newspapers have said that Google benefits and makes money from news and analysis that media organizations provide, with News Corp Australia chairman Michael Miller saying: “They derive immense benefit from using news content created by others.”
As of yesterday morning, Australian Internet users who search on Google have been presented with a small pop-up ad that tells them: “The way Aussies use Google is at risk.”
The ad, which resembles a warning, tells users “your search experience will be hurt by new regulation.”
Users who click through are taken to an open letter, written by Google Australia’s managing director Mel Silva, headed by a large warning sign icon.
“We need to let you know about new government regulation that will hurt how Australians use Google Search and YouTube,” the letter states.
“A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia,” it says.
In a statement released yesterday afternoon, commission Chairman Rod Sims said Google’s letter “contains misinformation” about how the code would work.
He said any charges to currently free Google services would be at the company’s discretion.
“Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services, such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so,” Sims said. “Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.”
Sims said the code — which is still in draft form — was about addressing “a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.”
“The draft code will allow Australian news businesses to negotiate for fair payment for their journalists’ work that is included on Google services. A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy,” he said.
According to the consumer watchdog, tech giants such as Google and Facebook made about US$6 billion from the online advertising market in Australia in 2018.
The open letter from Google said that the revenue sharing code would “put free services at risk.”
“The law would force us to give an unfair advantage to one group of businesses — news media businesses — over everyone else who has a Web site, YouTube channel or small business,” it says.
“News media businesses alone would be given information that would help them artificially inflate their ranking over everyone else, even when someone else provides a better result,” it says.
Google also says in the letter it already pays media organizations “millions of dollars and sends them billions of free clicks every year.”
“We’ve offered to pay more to license content. But rather than encouraging these types of partnerships, the law is set up to give big media companies special treatment and to encourage them to make enormous and unreasonable demands that would put our free services at risk,” it says.
“We’re going to do everything we possibly can to get this proposal changed. You’ll hear more from us in the coming days — stay tuned,” it says.
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