Why Google & Facebook want to stop service in Australia
News đź“°Google and Facebook play huge important role in every users life. Google started as a search company, but now provides more than 50 services, from e-mail and online document production to mobile phone and tablet apps. Strong financial results from Google reflected the rapid growth in general and in Google's popularity. Some of this success was due to a shift in publicity spending to the Internet and away from conventional media such as journals, magazines and the television industry. Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in the world, with more than 700 million worldwide users. A small group of individuals were first and foremost associated with the same interests behind the construction of the site. It was not long before the website opened to people all over the country and then around the world, resulting in the expanded user base today.
Google and Facebook has threatened to stop its service in the Australian market if a new law governing its relationship with news publishers go ahead.
Reason why Google and Facebook are deciding to pull out of Australia
If the services come to an end could it really affect people?
Could this set a global precedent?
Alternatives of Google
What does Australia want Google and Facebook to pay?
Conclusion
Reason why Google and Facebook are deciding to pull out of Australia
A new law is being passed down where major tech giants are to pay news that appears in search or shared on their platforms.
The proposed law would require Google and Facebook to have commercial agreements with every news organization or to enter a forced arbitration.
The regional director stated that if this version of the code became law, they would not have any real choice but to end Google Search in Australia. While Facebook sated it would block links to new articles in its popular news feed. Both companies have suggested optional alternatives rather than mandatory codes that the Federal Government has not approved.
The tech giants must have felt strong when they were backed up by the US authorities and called on Australia to cancel the legislation proposed.
But to this Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that they would not respond to threats.
In Australia, both businesses make immense profits, but condemn their limited amount of tax. Facebook Australia reported receiving nearly $674 million in 2019 from Australian advertisers, but paying less than $17 million. Google did well, $4.3 billion in 2019 and less than $100 million is paid.
If the services come to an end could it really affect people?
Experts and industry representor’s suggest that if tech giants would fulfill their threats the millions of consumers would face impact from irritation, to even more inaccurate details and to possible health risks.
Small companies depending on Google ad words promotions to locate people will also become unsure.
In 2018 a writer for wired magazine spent three months just using Bing exclusively and concluded it worked fine almost every time. But when it came to finding specific articles he struggled because the techniques he had learned for search using Google didn’t deliver.
Google also powers services like Gmail, google maps and YouTube among others. It wouldn’t just affect the ability for people to search but also other apps linked to Google as google is seen as an essential to many consumers.
Could this set a global precedent?
Australian Senator Rex Patrick asked Google that it’s going to worldwide and are they going to pull out from every market? But, including Facebook, Google and other impacted companies are headquartered in the United States. And the US government, at least its previous administration, urged Australia not to 'stretch' the new rule, warns that it has long lasting negative consequences.
Google has left the country before due to the local laws but in different scenario.
Since a 2010 row on suspected Chinese hacking in which it stopped censored search results for Chinese users, Google has been largely not available in mainland China.
In Europe, a controversial new EU rule on copyright says that search engines and news aggregators should pay news sites for links.
Editors in France agreed with Google this week on how it could work. But only a handful of such agreements with exceptional French newspapers have been signed – making them somewhat different from the much more rigorous Australian ventures.
Alternatives of Google
- Bing - The default Microsoft Edge search engine is the second biggest after Google, but in spite of being around 11 years old, it only has 3,74 percent of the web traffic in Australia.
- DuckDuckGo - This search engine is known to be 'anti google' and does not collect personal data and claims to use 400 sources to return search results
- Swisscows -Family friendly, 2014 launched search engine that filters pornographic and abusive search outcomes. Also, personal information is not kept
- Ecosia - It notes that 'every search with Ecosia literally removes 1 kg of CO2 from the air.' Launched in2009, it provides 80 percent of income to NGOs.
- Yelp - Australian search engine that deals with local companies including restaurants, doctors, beauty salons and bars
What does Australia want Google and Facebook to pay?
It is undecided just how much money is at stake. The proposed legislation includes consultation and arbitration, leaving the issue unresolved–if Google cannot negotiate with a news agency, a judge would determine what 'fair' means. Yet the government has said it needs "fair" fees to news organizations, which in the last 15 years saw a three-quarter decrease in print advertisement revenues. In comparison, digital advertising has increased significantly on major platforms including Google and Facebook.
Conclusion
The media titan Rupert Murdoch, who owns News Corp, was born there. Australia is an involved media industry. His networks, including public broadcasters like ABC News in Australia, will benefit from this new law. After 2014 the budget of ABC has been decreased by hundreds of millions of dollars and reduced programs. Local Newspapers have been hurt in the demise of advertising, there are more than 125 regional news outlets online earlier this year, leading to hundreds of job losses. And local newspapers have also lost coverage.
FAQs
1.What are the issues between Google and Facebook with Australia?
Google will disable its functions if Australia forces its new laws on Google and Facebook which requires them to pay local companies for sharing content.
2.What are the changes in laws did Australia make?
Australia is on its course to strike a deal with Google and Facebook where its required for them to pay local publishers and broadcasters for sharing content.
3.How many Google users does Australia have?
Australia has 83.6% traffic originating from Google. Around 20.23 million users use Google.
4.How many Facebook users does Australia have?
Australia have 11.23 million users from Facebook.
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