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Google’s threat to Australian government is deeply disturbing: Goldstuck

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Tech expert, Arthur Goldstuck, says it is deeply disturbing that Google is threatening Australia with the withdrawal of its services. The company said on Friday that it would disable the search function in that country.

Google’s threat comes after the Australian government put in place legislation that would compel Alphabet Inc. which owns the world’s biggest search engine to start paying media outlets for their content.

Goldstuck has described Google’s assertion as an ’empty threat’, adding that the world’s biggest search engine is benefitting hugely by having a presence in Australia. Goldstuck believes that the move by the Australian government is aimed at protecting livelihoods.

He adds that for many years, news outlets were happy that links to their content were posted on Google and Facebook, but that this has led to many media outlets losing out on advertising revenue.

Click below to listen to Goldstuck:

Goldstuck adds that the essence of this piece of legislation is to protect media houses in instances where their livelihoods are threatened by the fact that their advertising is shrinking on traditional platforms, while their content is aggregated freely on other platforms such as on Google and Facebook.

The Australian government introduced the proposed law in 2020 and has said failure to comply with the new legislation would cost Google millions of dollars in fines.

Both Facebook and Google have described the legislation as “unworkable”, saying it would undermine the functioning of the internet.

Goldstuck explains why he believes the move will be beneficial to content producers.

Click below to listen to Goldstuck:

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