Alphabet’s Google said they are willing to shut down their search engine, as-well-as its other services on Friday in Australia. This action depicted an act of advocating for other American Social media companies such as Facebook.
The Australian government is trying to establish a new code of policy. This code requires Social media companies to pay certain fees to access content published by media companies in Australia.
The Australian government regards Google’s threat as a bluff because the American search engine will agree on it not being ideal for losing its 19 million user-based in Australia. Google noted that if they cease operating in the continent, their users will experience degraded search engine optimization and video blogging services.
The threat also resulted in a mild collision between the Australian publishers and Google. The Australians are keen on enforcing the new code while trying to bring the matter to the world’s notice.
The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also intervened respectively to Google’s threat, reminding the internet company that he runs a sovereign state that makes its rules — rules that benefit Australia.
Morrison said “People who want to work with that in Australia, you’re very welcome. But we don’t respond to threats.”
The Australian government is on the verge of making its new policy an official law whereby they already commissioned an arbitrator, Mel Silva, who will decide the penalty or the price of the payment that is to be made.
While addressing the Senate committee, she said “Coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk if this version of the Code were to become law, it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia.”
The new policy entails that social media companies make a negotiated amount of payment directly to Australian publishers for displaying their contents (news) on their social news feed or as a search engine search result.
Rod Sims, an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair — could not predict Google or Facebook’s decision in context of the new policy. However, he is quite assured that the Australian government is on the brink of accomplishing favorable outcomes while risking losing access to high profiled social services in Australia.
“They talk of commercial deals where they’re in full control of the deal, in my view that’s not a commercial deal,” he said.
Google then noted that the new policy is unreasonable, and without proper policy-review, the Australians will be left with a degraded search tool, which Google claims to be risky.
The American tech company is overly optimistic about its lucrative business, whereby its Search ads contribute in a huge way to Australia’s ad revenue.
Globally, Google has been responsive in generating revenue to bolster the digital economy, as-well-as Facebook and other high profiled Social media companies.
Earlier this week, the American government told the Australians to retract their policies and lookout for a new angle to regulate social media platforms.
The Australian government drafted their policy after Google agreed to pay news publications in France for the use of their content online. The deal is said to be worth about $1.3b over a three-year period. They also believe that the excess power the social media companies have threatened the validity of their democracy.
