On Monday, Google has officially said that the proposed antitrust law in Australia will bring damage to the business of small, individual content creators, and channel operators.
Recently, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) proposed an antitrust law that is meant to bring some changes in the way Google, Facebook, and other tech giants use consumer data and content for their own benefit.
The ACCC proposed that this antitrust law would allow Australian news businesses to charge some fees from these tech giants as a fair payment for their journalistic work and services.
The chairman of ACCC has said that there is an imbalance in the bargaining power between news media business and tech companies. So, this new law will address this issue and give the Australian news business the power to strike a fair deal for the services that they provide to these firms.
Now, Google finds this notion ludicrous, and it has criticized this law by saying that forcing the tech firms to pay for the news that appears on their platforms would not be beneficial for many people. In fact, it will badly affect small or individual content creators and news channel operators.
Google also said that only big media firms will benefit from this law. Their search rankings will artificially increase and they will be able to improve their overall viewership because they will get an unfair advantage over the small-time content creators or those individuals who earn money by running their own websites or YouTube channels. Many people have their own YouTube channels and the revenue they earn through advertisements is beneficial for them as well as YouTube. But this law will adversely affect this situation.
Google also highlighted a chance that if this law is implemented, the big media firms may receive confidential user data and consumer content. This data can then be misused by creating fake viewership, resulting in increased ratings, which will in turn again impact the creators of smaller businesses and content.
So, Google firmly believes that this law will affect all Australian users quite negatively.
ACCC, on the other hand, is adamant to implement this law in 2020. As per an estimate, if a company spends around $71.93 (A$100) on online advertisement in Australia, and if it excludes Classifieds, still around one-third of the revenue goes to Google and Facebook. So, if we look from the Australian point of view, their argument sounds quite valid.
Photo: AFP via Getty Images
Read next: Google Can Now Recreate Landmarks In 3D With Crowdsourced Photos Only
Recently, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) proposed an antitrust law that is meant to bring some changes in the way Google, Facebook, and other tech giants use consumer data and content for their own benefit.
The ACCC proposed that this antitrust law would allow Australian news businesses to charge some fees from these tech giants as a fair payment for their journalistic work and services.
The chairman of ACCC has said that there is an imbalance in the bargaining power between news media business and tech companies. So, this new law will address this issue and give the Australian news business the power to strike a fair deal for the services that they provide to these firms.
Now, Google finds this notion ludicrous, and it has criticized this law by saying that forcing the tech firms to pay for the news that appears on their platforms would not be beneficial for many people. In fact, it will badly affect small or individual content creators and news channel operators.
Google also said that only big media firms will benefit from this law. Their search rankings will artificially increase and they will be able to improve their overall viewership because they will get an unfair advantage over the small-time content creators or those individuals who earn money by running their own websites or YouTube channels. Many people have their own YouTube channels and the revenue they earn through advertisements is beneficial for them as well as YouTube. But this law will adversely affect this situation.
Google also highlighted a chance that if this law is implemented, the big media firms may receive confidential user data and consumer content. This data can then be misused by creating fake viewership, resulting in increased ratings, which will in turn again impact the creators of smaller businesses and content.
So, Google firmly believes that this law will affect all Australian users quite negatively.
ACCC, on the other hand, is adamant to implement this law in 2020. As per an estimate, if a company spends around $71.93 (A$100) on online advertisement in Australia, and if it excludes Classifieds, still around one-third of the revenue goes to Google and Facebook. So, if we look from the Australian point of view, their argument sounds quite valid.
Photo: AFP via Getty Images
Read next: Google Can Now Recreate Landmarks In 3D With Crowdsourced Photos Only
