Despite the final draft of the Australian Government’s News Media Bargaining Code being watered down, Google still holds a firm stance that the advocated law will be unworkable.
Principally, CEO of Google Australia Melanie Silva has expressed the view that the law poses a serious danger to the operation of Google’s search engine. If Google is to be required to pay for links to news websites in the search engine results that users see, it will ‘unravel the key principles of the open internet [that] people use every day’. Moreover, if such legislative principals are to be applied in Australia, it will undoubtedly invigorate international repercussions and likely restructure Google’s entire search engine.
Additionally, if commercial arrangements between Google and news media companies fall through, the proposed negotiation model in the law will require an arbitration panel to make a binding decision. Based on the current state of the law, this arbitration model appears to be heavily favoured towards local news media companies. As such, Google has proposed a counter-model to retain control during negotiations and prevent further damage to its services with other amendments prepared for the proposed legislation going into the future.
From a competition law perspective, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chair Rod Sims has provided that this type of law will be the world’s first and critical for the survival of Australian news media. By having Google pay for the news they publish, the law is intended to reinvigorate the operation of the new media industry, set an international precedent, and quell Google’s market power and dominance.
Google’s counter amendments will be scrutinised by Parliament next year before voting on the new law.
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