Satya Nadella spoke with Australian PM about opportunities created by pay-for-news-plan. Zuck called the Treasurer for a chat, too
- Reference: 1612136576
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/01/31/satya_nadella_mark_zuckerberg_call_australia/
- Source link:
News of the conversations came from Australia’s treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Sunday political chat panel show Insiders .
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“Mark Zuckerberg reached out to talk about the code and the impact on Facebook,” Frydenberg said. He and communications minister Paul Fletcher took that call.
“It was a very constructive discussion,” Frydenberg said, adding that it did not change his or Fletcher’s position.
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Google Australia’s self-promoting search results.
Click to enlarge
Frydenberg then revealed that Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison last week spoke with Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella and president Brad Smith.
“As you know they’ve got Microsoft Bing which is another search engine,” Frydenberg said. The show’s host suggested Nadella and Smith made the call in the interest of increasing Bing’s market share. To which Frydenberg responded: “They are watching this very closely and no doubt see opportunities here in Australia to expand.”
The treasurer’s remarks come after Google last week showed Australian users a big yellow banner that offered links to its arguments about the News Media Bargaining Code.
In previous publications such as Google ANZ managing director Mel Silva’s January 22nd [4]comments to a Senate committee, Google said that if the Code goes ahead in its current form the company would have “no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia.”
A [5]new Google FAQ , published on February 1st, uses the following language: “Stopping to make Search available is the last thing we want to have happen, and it’s a worst-case scenario if the Code remains unworkable.” The new post also says Silva’s remarks are in no way a threat to pull search in Australia.
Microsoft are watching this very closely and no doubt see opportunities here in Australia
That shift may reflect the ongoing discussions between Australia’s government, Google, and Facebook, that Frydenberg also revealed in his Sunday remarks.
Changes that are more to Google’s liking remain possible as the News Media Bargaining Code is currently being considered by a committee. But Google’s only public offer is for Australia to sign up to its News Showcase program, an offer that is widely held to offer less money than Australia’s planned code.
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Frydenberg did not reveal the substance of the government's discussions with Microsoft, but the prospect of the software giant enthusiastically signing up for the Code and writing big cheques to Australian media would certainly put the cat among the pigeons! ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_business/policy&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YBeK5JkTHeZWWvewAGzDKwAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_business/policy&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YBeK5JkTHeZWWvewAGzDKwAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/01/31/google_search_warning_to_australia.jpg
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/22/google_australia_search_threat/
[5] https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-asia/australia/top-questions-news-code/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_business/policy&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YBeK5JkTHeZWWvewAGzDKwAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Whenever I used to link to a news article I'd first email the journalist and ask their permission. To begin with they were incredibly grateful for the respect, but quickly got sick of the interruptions. I can't afford to pay for all the journals I'd like to read that are increasingly paywalled, but I still like to browse their headlines for important stuff I can find elsewhere. 5 free NYT articles a month - maybe doable with Biden, Trump would burn that in a morning.
The BBC / Times / Telegraph report a lack of paper to print newspapers during the pandemic because so much cardboard is used in home deliveries and not getting recycled quickly enough. Both my cats anticipated this demand and jumped into cardboard boxes a year ago.
Is a search engine, they just can't ask for permission for everything.
Search
Normally, I use DuckDuckGo, sometimes with the g! bang if i especially want to see a Google Search. Recently, to see "what I'm missing" I used Google directly - I thought their prominently linked article with thier POV was forced, artificial, hypocritical, and unconvincing - [1]Mel Silva, Managing Director for Google Australia - "When you put a price on linking to certain information, you break the way that search engines work, and you no longer have a free and open web". Pretty much all of the comments posted there were negative...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHypeuHePEI
More lies from the lying liars
"Google said it never threatened to pull search from Australia"
Easy way to tell that Google is lying: it says something.
Satya Nadella and Mark Zuckerberg spoke to Australia’s leaders last week to discuss the nation’s News Media Bargaining Code
Uhhhh ... Satya and Mark need to talk and negotiate with Rupert. Whatever Rupert says, politicians in Australia must obey . Or else.
On the one hand Facebook, on the other hand Murdoch - you don't care who loses you just want a long fight
Replace “News Media” with “News Corp”
Like Ned Kelly at Glenrowan, this may be Rupe’s last stand.
Kelly was a cop killer, Murdoch has done worse.
They can still use plain hyperlinks
Google and Facebook can still link to things without having to pay a cent: just use an ordinary hyperlink (you know, "a href"). But they're scraping sites and snatching images to present a more enticing offering, which is where they're straying onto news media's turf. They don't want to offer an ordinary hyperlink because it's boring and would make Facebook posts and Google's new sites look cheap, so why not pay a bit for that? If not, I'm happy to use Bing (in fact, I made it my default last week; it's perfectly fine, no biggie).