Google on Friday threatened to shut down the search engine in Australia if officials there passed a law requiring it to pay news publishers for their content.
The Silicon Valley titan has stepped up its aggressive fight against the proposal, saying the move would “break the way Google works” because the company would have to pay to post links to news articles.
“This code creates an unreasonable and unmanageable financial and operational risk to our business,” Mel Silva, CEO of Google Australia, said in an open letter, echoing comments made before an Australian Senate committee.
“If the code became law in its current form, we would have no choice but to make Google Search in Australia available.”
The controversial proposal would allow news companies to negotiate payments from Google and Facebook for the use of their content that appears in search results or news feeds. An arbitrator would decide the price if the parties cannot reach an agreement.
Google has previously said the measure will put its free services – including its search engine and YouTube – “at risk” in Australia if it becomes law. Google now says YouTube would not be affected by the proposal in its current form.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rejected Google’s threat to block search access, saying the country has set rules for “things you can do in Australia”.
“People who want to work with this in Australia are very welcome. But we are not responding to threats, “Morrison said.
Google’s offensive came after US trade representatives Daniel Bahar and Karl Ehlers called on Australia to drop the proposed law, saying it would be “clearly to the detriment of the two US companies”.
The proposal has broad political support and is supported by publishers such as News Corp., which owns The Post and publishes eight of Australia’s top 10 newspapers.
With Post threads