What’s up with that Open Letter to Australians?

Tech News

28 Aug

Content Warning: This post contains swear words and slang.

If you are in Australia and use any Google products at all, then I'm sure you've seen the notices they've put literally everywhere about the ACCC's proposed arbitration code between News Publishers and *digital platform services*.

I clicked through pretty quickly because it was odd and I have a habit of reading things that look like error messages. The Open Letter to Australians from Mel Silva, Managing Director of Google Australia is pretty clear in what the impacts of this code would be for average Australians (and average Australian businesses...) but of course various news publications and the ACCC (whose content was also definitely served to me by Google....) are saying that Google is using scare tactics and is generally incorrect about what the code would do.

So I went and found the draft code, and skimmed through the definitions at the front till I got to the meat of it. .... The phrase that comes to mind is pretty rude, so lets tone it down and say that I think the ACCC is on something if they think this is, in any way, a reasonable piece of legislation. It truly seems like they've seen the problem i.e. Australian publishers are struggling to meet the demands of the modern digital business world, and looked for the largest non-publisher businesses to pin the cost on. (I’m not the only one who thinks that)

Now, I'm not particularly sympathetic to large news corporations because many of them have been absolutely raking it in, enjoying full control of the content distributed in this country for more than 50 years in some cases. That they are now making less profit doesn't worry me in the slightest. It does bother me that their response to making less profit is likely to be reducing the quality of journalism by firing and/or cutting pay to journalists, but to be clear that's how they have always done business. So consider me biased against them. That said I'm not exactly biased towards Google either, Google can certainly afford the amounts being asked for to an extent.

So what's my problem with this code??

The way they've written it, whether they realise this or not, will affect EVERYONE. It will definitely privilege content from large news corporations over anyone not registered under the Australian Communications and Media Authority as a "registered news business corporation". Looking at the AMCA website it appears that this will be a new type of registration, given that the licenses/registrations currently available on the site relate specifically to Radio, TV and Telecommunications Carriers.

So if you're a local newspaper you will first need to go get this new registration to be covered by this code, oh and you must already have greater than $150,000 per year in revenue as a corporation, and if you're anyone else, congrats you're shit out of luck.

To be clear, what this means is it won't matter if your content (as a creator or a person or a business) is more relevant to the search query, Google, YouTube and Facebook will be forced to show that news content first, even if it isn't relevant, even if it's behind a paywall AND they want Google and the others to pay for the privilege of showing less relevant content.

It seems like they've misunderstood what Google Search is?

The relationship between Google and news publishers is as the sooty newspaper kid, shouting the headlines in Victorian era movies was to the newspaper printer. The kid didn't pay the printer, the printer paid him. Just because the kid is now a global corporation with it's own independent funding sources doesn't mean the flow of money should be the other way round. To Google's credit, they were in negotiations to pay anyway.

That aside, here are the main points verbatim from the draft code that will screw over everybody:

52M Giving explanations of information

Subsection (2)

(a) a list and explanation of the data that the digital platform service collects (whether or not it shares the data with the registered news business) about the registered news business’ users through their engagement with covered news content made available by the digital platform service;

(b) a list and explanation of the products and services supplied by the digital platform service that collect data about the registered news business’ users through their engagement with covered news content made available by the digital platform service;

(c) a list and explanation of the data that the digital platform service currently has a practice of making available to registered news businesses;

(d) an explanation of how the form of the data mentioned in paragraph (c) differs from the form of the data collected by the digital platform service about users of the digital platform service;

(e) information about how the registered news business corporation can gain access to the data mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (c).

I am deeply unclear how the ACCC doesn't see this as a massive invasion of privacy, but lets break it down. Sub-subsection (a) means that any registered news corporation will be provided a list of the kind data Google has by virtue of you having any engagement with online news. This is followed with sub-subsection (e) that says now we know what data you have, we would like to have and use that data too.

This means that if you use Google Search or literally any Google product that shows news then they will have your usage data, possible including, IP address, physical location at any given time, full name, email address, etc ad nauseum. If you have a Google account or a Facebook account then news businesses feel like they should be able to have and use that information.

Maybe they didn't mean to include full name, email address and physical location at any given time in the list of things they want access to... but it sure doesn't say they are excluded. Maybe the Australian Privacy Act will protect us... but probably not before a bunch of news organisations are given/take this data and a data breach happens.

They can already see aggregated data about who engages with their content through Google Analytics or any other web analytics program, same as the rest of us. Why they feel they deserve access to a higher level of data than we, the users, have authorised is beyond me.

The next section in summary:

We think we should have special knowledge of your algorithm so we can always rank highest and we want 28 days notice of you changing it.

Woops meant to say,

52N Algorithmic ranking of covered news content

(1) Subsection (2) applies if:

(a) changes are planned to be made to an algorithm of the digital platform service; and

(b) the changes are likely to have a significant effect on the ranking of the registered news business’ covered news content made available by the digital platform service.

(2) The responsible digital platform corporation for the digital platform service must ensure that:

(a) notice of the change is given to the registered news business corporation for the registered news business; and

(b) the notice is given:

(i) unless subparagraph (ii) applies—at least 28 days before the change is made; or

(ii) if the change relates to a matter of urgent public interest—no later than 48 hours after the change is made; and

(c) the notice describes the change, and the effect mentioned in paragraph (1)(b), in terms that are readily comprehensible; and

(d) the notice describes how the registered news business can minimise negative effects of the change on the ranking of its covered news content made available by the digital platform service.

There's also special sections for pay-walled content, the way that content is displayed in search etc and advertising of news publishers, but I won't sport with your intelligence by including those sections too. They follow the exact format of the section above.

That's right.. news publishers think it's reasonable that they have advance and detailed knowledge of the search algorithm, including as it relates to pay-walled content, the design of displayed links and even the ad algorithm.

I would LOVE to have access to the exact requirements of the search algorithm, it would make SEO so much easier, but this is a case where it absolutely has to be *everyone* or *no-one*. If only news publishers have that information then they can make sure their content displays first on anything and everything to the exclusion and detriment of all others. Obviously that's not ok, right???

Oh but we wouldn't USE the great and terrible powers, they say, we just want to HAVE them.

Bullshit

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Give one group of economically motivated people a way to make MUCH more money at the cost of harming multitudes of anonymous people and history has shown they will. Every. Single. Time.

Nobody should have access to the algorithms.

Every company who has one is right to protect it, not because "it's a trade secret" or because it earns them money to be the only ones with it (though it does that too), but because the internet is at it's best when everyone has the opportunity to get the highest ranking through hard work and quality of content.

To try and legislate how that works can only have detrimental effects for everybody.

What this all comes down to, is that News Publishers don't have the distribution monopoly they once had and some of them are floundering around in this new world looking for someone to blame. That's nobody's fault but their own and the ACCC's incredibly heavy-handed attempt to help them out is definitely not the right way to go about ensuring Australia continues to have quality news media.

This legislation can harm me, as a person through the handing over of my data and as a business through the disadvantage of not having access to the algorithm. If you are a person in Australia who uses the internet, it can harm you too. If you are business, not covered by the registration definition, then you can be harmed too. I’m not ok about that, and I have sent a version of this post to the ACCC as an “interested party”. You can do so too here, bargainingcode@accc.gov.au, submissions are due by 5pm 28th August 2020

Sources:

Tech NewsTechnologyGoogleAustralian Competition and Consumer CommissionNews CorpNews Media Bargaining Code

Nicola Hanna https://www.ha.co.nz

What’s up with that Open Letter to Australians?

So what's my problem with this code??

It seems like they've misunderstood what Google Search is?

We think we should have special knowledge of your algorithm so we can always rank highest and we want 28 days notice of you changing it.

Nobody should have access to the algorithms.

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