ACCC Returns Fire To Google’s “Open Letter To Australians”, Labelling It As “Misinformation”

ACCC Returns Fire To Google’s “Open Letter To Australians”, Labelling It As “Misinformation”

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has responded to Google Australia’s “open letter” yesterday, labelling it as “misinformation” and even a threat to democracy.

In an open letter to the community yesterday, Google Australia’s managing director Mel Silva said the proposed changes from the recently announced News Media Bargaining Code would give big media companies an unfair advantage over all the other websites that appear on Google.

You can read Silva’s letter in full here.

Silva said: “News media businesses alone would be given information that would help them artificially inflate their ranking over everyone else, even when someone else provides a better result.

“We’ve always treated all website owners fairly when it comes to information we share about ranking. The proposed changes are not fair and they mean that Google Search results and YouTube will be worse for you,” Silva added.

This morning, the ACCC responded to Google’s and Silva’s claims. You can read its letter of response in full below:

The open letter published by Google today contains misinformation about the draft news media bargaining code which the ACCC would like to address. 

Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.

Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.

The draft code will allow Australian news businesses to negotiate for fair payment for their journalists’ work that is included on Google services.

This will address a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.

A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy.

We will continue to consult on the draft code with interested parties, including Google.

 

 

 




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ACCC Google Mel Silva

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