"Paying for links breaks the way search engines work, and it undermines how the web works too".

Oh my GOD... and this is the genius running Google in Australia, did they have to meet a certain quota of stupid?
Paying for links is exactly Googles business model.
You sign up for ad words, you enter your keywords, the amount you want to pay for each click and if somebody searches for those words, and clicks on the link you get a bill for the damn click.

Literally every way of monetizing content on the interenet revolves around paying for link clicks; the others being, impressions and subscriptions.
There needs to be a class action lawsuit against Google for undermning the internet, the CEO just said so... I almost choked on my food while watching ABC news.

And no, Australia isn't the 1st country to ask google to pay for content, the French are already collecting.

For ads on Google, the advertiser pays Google for clicks, whereas the new code would require Google to pay news organisations for clicks. So it really is the opposite of the current model, and Google loses money instead of gaining it. Hence their threat to pull out.

bobajob said..
Duck Google, DuckDuckGo

Yep... DuckDuckGo is your friend.

They don't track like Google and you still see content.

The downside is the adverts may not be as targeted but, is that really such a bad thing?

Stop using Chrome browser, use Brave.

all well and good, when I bought my phone years ago I downloaded a map program that worked well for me. But google updates removed it and won't let it back

billykiter said..
I don't get it. If you need google to pay for news content you get no news on google. Is the government trying to suck up to all Australian media organisations to help them make more money? That's a great way of making sure they are all on your side. Control the media and you control the people.

this is probably oversimplification but as far as I understand it, the government wants google to pay for publishing other people's news. Some other countries (I think France is one of them) have already made google to agree to similar deals.

In addition, the government also wants google to pay for posting links to Aus media web sites and I think this is the part that Google does not like.
I probably missed few other "details" of the proposed legislation

Macroscien said..

gs12 said..

Macroscien said..
Possibly nobody here consider what a great services we do receive from Google , not paying at all.Free maps, emails, storage , video streaming.

it's not free, you are paying for the services by watching ads. It' basically one big advertising platform.

As others said there are usually alternatives, i can recommend mapy.cz for outdoor activities, I find quality/detail is better that google maps, it is outdoor oriented and you can download maps to your phone for offline use. I haven't tried them for navigation while driving but the function is there too.

Another option is openstreetmap.org, which works well for my needs (mountain biking) as I can load it to my Garmin bike computer.

Not free? ok next time I go to petrol station to get full tank I want also to refill in exchange for watching adverts on station walls.
As to alternative maps I remember well hassle with Garmin GPS going circles.

I don't think you understand how advertising works.

billykiter said..
I don't get it. If you need google to pay for news content you get no news on google. Is the government trying to suck up to all Australian media organisations to help them make more money? That's a great way of making sure they are all on your side. Control the media and you control the people.

Google does not (AFAIK) actually employ a live body to investigate/author/create news - they just copy and paste others efforts and use it to generate revenue as an aggregator. Its like the printers just run off a few 100K copies of their own tabloid off that day's plates of the Australian, and sell it at 99% profit in competition with the "Australian" they just got paid to print, just with their own sourced advertisements from coles/woolies etc that they also get paid for.....