Google stepped up its tone in Australia on Friday, threatening to block its search engine if Canberra does not amend the bill that requires the California giant to pay the media for its content.
The Australian government is working on a “mandatory code of conduct” that should govern the relationship between the media and the giants that dominate the Internet, including Google and Facebook, which capture much of the advertising revenue.
This project, one of the most restrictive in the world, provides for penalties of millions of dollars in case of violation and targets the “current thread” of Facebook and Google searches.
But Google Australia CEO Mel Silva told a Senate committee on Friday that the “worst case scenario” would be for the draft code to be approved as it is and that, if necessary, his group would be forced to suspend your search services in Australia.
“If this version of the code becomes law, it would leave us no choice but to suspend Google Search in Australia,” Silva said.
A threat to which Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded.
“Australia is the one who sets the rules for what can be done in Australia. It is our parliament that decides,” he said. “People who are willing to work in this context in Australia are welcome. But we do not give in to threats.”
– “An unsustainable precedent” –
The Australian initiative is being closely followed around the world at a time when the media is suffering in a digital economy in which Facebook, Google and other large technology companies are capturing more and more advertising revenue.
The media crisis has been exacerbated by the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus. In Australia, dozens of newspapers were shut down and hundreds of journalists were unemployed.
The draft code calls for Google and Facebook to remunerate the Australian media, whether it is the public ABC group or the newspapers of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, for using their content.
The government only targets Facebook and Google, but not other very popular platforms such as Instagram or YouTube.
One of the most controversial issues is that Google and Facebook should conclude a mandatory arbitration with each medium, in the absence of an amicable agreement. The arbitrator will decide between the position of the media and the technology giants on the amount of remuneration.
“This provision of the code would set an unsustainable precedent for our industry and the digital economy,” Silva said Friday. “It’s not compatible with how search engines or the internet work.”
Silva insisted that Google wants to support the media and suggested changing the draft code, which should come into force this year.
“There is a clear path to a fair code that we can work with, with just a few minor amendments,” he said.
Google has said recently that it could prevent content on Australian media sites from appearing in its search engine responses. He started testing this type of measure among some Internet users.
– Threats on Facebook –
But this Friday was the first time the group said it was willing to block its search engine in Australia.
The United States has also called on Australia to abandon its project because it considers it “fundamentally unbalanced” in favor of the media.
Facebook has also rejected the code in its current form, saying it will stop publishing Australian media content if it takes effect.
“The vast majority of people who use Facebook could continue to do so, but we can no longer provide news,” Simon Milner, a Facebook official, told the Australian Senate.
Australia initially proposed a “voluntary code of conduct”, but strengthened its position on the grounds that a fair agreement could not be found between the media and the technology giants due to the weight of the latter.
Australia is not the only market in which Google is in conflict with the media.
On Thursday, the California group announced that it had reached a framework agreement that paves the way for the remuneration of the French press for related or related rights.
Related rights are a copyright-like provision created two years ago by a European directive to supposedly improve the distribution of digital revenue for the benefit of newspapers and news agencies.