Google strikes out again at ACCC code

Google says it is prepared to pay more for news content but proposed law is stacked against it.

The Google logo on the outside of its New York City office building. Picture: AFP

Google says it is prepared to pay more for news content but proposed law is stacked against it. It says it would be hard to simply walk away from Australia and shut down its news service as it did in Spain in 2014 due to that proposed law.

It says the proposed draft code by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is “unworkable” and proposed law isn’t just about news.

The Mountain View-based tech giant has again taken aim at proposed law requiring it to pay for mainstream media content it uses in search.

Google, in a blog post, says it is not against a law that governs the relationships between news businesses and digital platforms.

The ACCC has given parties until Friday to make submissions on the draft code, but Google has again decided to go public with its concerns beforehand.

Google brands the arbitration method to be used between itself and media organisations as making “enormous and unreasonable demands” and as ignoring “the real-world value Google provides to news publishers”.

The arbitration system kicks in should news organisations and Google fail to agree privately on arrangements for paying for content. Instead of negotiating clause by clause, the moderator will adopt the code that is regarded as fairer – a move designed to ensure parties are reasonable. Google doesn’t see it that way.

Google again says it will be obliged to tell media businesses what user data it collects and supplies to them, however the ACCC previous said in an open letter that Google is not obliged to share data with news organisations unless it wants to.

Google says it had decided to speak out publicly again because “the government shifted the goalposts”. “We have been engaged with the Government, the ACCC and news businesses in good faith since a publisher code was first brought up last year,” the blogpost says.

“Initially this new law was going to be a voluntary code of conduct, and we were making good progress on discussions with news publishers.

“But in April the Government shifted the goalposts and moved to a proposed mandatory code. On July 31, the proposal became a new law.

“We have continued to raise our concerns and make submissions, but unfortunately these have not been reflected in this proposed law.”

Google says it has heard from “thousands of Australians who share our concerns” in response to its open letter made available through a link on its search page.

“Put simply, it‘s (the code) extremely one-sided and unfair––so unfair that no company should be asked to accept it.

“Just before this law was proposed we had reached agreements with several Australian news organisations to pay them to license their content.

“We‘re happy to pay more to license content, and want to support journalism as it transitions to a digital future, but a fair negotiation or arbitration should factor in the value both parties provide.”

Google says it never suggested that the proposed law would require it to charge Australians for search and YouTube.

It says it would be difficult to shut down Google News as it did in Spain, as the proposed law would force it to remove global news content.

“That means we’d have to undertake a mass cull of content globally to stop them being visible to Australians – we’d have to remove all foreign newspapers, bloggers, YouTube citizen reporters, but also sports reporting, discussions of global health issues, tweets about current events, and literally endless other types of content from all sources around the world.”

The Australian has invited the ACCC for comment.

Google’s new blog post can be found here.