There is a fairly willing game of chicken going on between the Australian Govt and the tech giants Facebook and Google.
The Govt wants to legislate that they must pay royalties to mainstream media for reproducing or linking to their content. Probably fearful of big markets following suit, various threats are being made to withdraw from the Australian market in various ways including denying access to Google.
I wonder just how much of a concern that is. I use Firefox and sometimes Safari. I gather it may have an impact on those systems that work best interfacing with Chrome, but for common or garden searching I am wondering what the fuss is.
BTW has anyone used the search aggregator Dogpile ? Doesn’t appear on my iPhone App Store.
Search engines in a post Google Oz
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Good for the Australian government. I hope that other governments around the world will support and join them in making a stand.
For way too long internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter have used the grey area between being a publisher and a platform to enjoy the rewards of both without having the responsibilities of either.
They’ve not only shat over traditional dead-tree media at a time when papers are struggling to pay staff to produce content the likes of FB then run for free (hey, we’re a platform and shouldn’t be charged for what our users post!)
They’re also party to morally reprehensible acts- and empower – the awful people who carry out those acts. Remember when FB ran a live feed of that looney who went on a shooting spree in NZ a couple of years back (hey, don’t blame us, we’re a publisher who has a right to report the news!).
Much as I detest Trump and all he stands for, I think his banning by the likes of FB and T when other equally inflamatory stuff (Al Qaeda videos, etc) is allowed sets an alarming precedent.
If we don’t reign in the likes of Zuckerberg now, one morning we’re all going to wake up and it will be the social media titans who will be taking control of the mess that we’ve made of our world.
Is this part of the same sort of situation whereby royalties are payable on reproducing content on youtube? It would be tough for this site, were that so.
I doubt sites like this will have much to worry about.
Most articles/videos posted here are linked to the platform on which they are reposted and its presumably they – Youtube, FB, Twitter, etc – who should – and hopefully will have to – pay any royalties.
So how could you stop them passing such royalty restrictions on to sites that link to them by a change of terms of service? Or embedding advertising into everything linked from them, to recoup the royalties they become obliged to pay?
Or indeed, the corporate owners of the media in question then seeking additional layers of royalties from sites that link to sites carrying their media and paying royalties for it?
When one line gets redrawn, will others follow like a ripple effect?
Hopefully this will point folk to other search engines like DuckDuckGo, which doesn’t track your every online movement.
Big fan of DuckDuckGo, my default – but can someone explain what the name means?
Try the internet
Isn’t this the internet?
Google it
This is a good joke.
Just for you. HP
The company name is a reference to the children’s game duck, duck, goose.
I KNEW that. Oh, all right. I didn’t know that. But – what children’s game is that?
A frozen duck is hung from a high branch, the children are arranged in a circle. As the duck is swung the children have to ‘duck’ to avoid being hit by the frozen duck.
If one is hit the cry of ‘goose’ goes up and the child has to sit down.
The last child standing is claimed King Duck and wins the duck.
Years ago a live duck was used but this was stopped on the grounds of cruelty. See ‘Sparrow Mumbling’
Or you could look it up on the internet.
In the summerisle, summerisle, summerisle, summerisle!
*Robert Robinson voice* ‘Hubert’s duck is a frozen duck. Hannah Gordon, what is duckduckgo?’
*Hannah Gordon voice* “Duckduckgo is, as I’m sure we all know, a military term used in training rookie soldiers – ha ha, not duckie soldiers, Frank! – to avoid enemy fire while advancing in rocky terrain.”
Duckduck Go, the real sound, of governments
Is anybody there @moose-the-mooche?
I looked around and there was no-one there.
Should have tried a search engine, I’m told they’re very good.
Duck duck go
Box set go.
I switched to Duck Duck Go, so I’m not too bothered on a day-to-day basis. But Google (I think) has already caved in somewhere in Europe on this exact same issue, which will no doubt encourage the Oz government to keep on keeping on.
Not sure I properly get it. I assumed that people accessing the articles via G or FB will result in a click on the article itself resulting in increased traffic which is good for selling advertising. On the other hand, I suppose a lot of people just look at the brief on G or FB and don’t bother clicking through.
Ecosia is a serach engine that claims to plant a tree for every 45 searches it undertakes. I’m giving it a try.
But how do these “nice” search engines make money? You need quite a lot of hardware and engineers to do effective searches. If they don’t make money from advertising or promotions then a Patreon request or subscription may not be far behind. Or they may just take all your data at some point and sell to the highest bidder.
I DuckDuckGoed it.
https://www.techjunkie.com/how-does-duckduckgo-make-money/
Dead easy!
Could you copy the text out here, Moose? Save us clicking the link.
Or better still, fly out to the Mekong and whisper it all, lovingly, into his ear as he is gently rising in the morning.
Remember the days when you woke and it was already risen?
We know a song about that, don’t we?
A persuasive rebuttal:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2021/02/09/michael-pascoe-google-facebook-cash-grab/