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BroForceOne t1_j9wb7lb wrote

>“It really surprises me that Google has decided that they’d rather prevent Canadians from accessing news than actually paying journalists for the work they do,”

No, I don't think that surprised anyone.

102

TheHumbleGeek t1_j9wcfyw wrote

The canadian journalists? ALL of them, or just the ones the Canadian government approves of? Besides, why does he care... CBC isn't going anywhere with how much money his government has funneled into it...

−3

Ojisan1 t1_j9we270 wrote

They’re not blocking anyone from accessing Canadian news. Anyone in Canada can type cbc.ca in their web browser.

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theOldSeaman t1_j9wh0ec wrote

Everyone should use a VPN so dictatorships can’t try to control the internet

0

mailslot t1_j9whast wrote

You don’t try to shake down the only significant source of traffic for your site. Google adds value to news organizations by prominently featuring their content, when most people don’t even want it. Broadcast news doesn’t provide nearly the same value to Google.

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IMind t1_j9wiuur wrote

Google should not be paying for news aggregation.

I'm a huge fan of paying for work. But headline aggregation LINKING to the source should not be paid for UNLESS that site is paying google for the click through PROMOTION of their link.

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sirzoop t1_j9wlzfo wrote

It's a bigger mistake for the Canadian government for trying to bankrupt journalists rather than letting them promote their websites on Google.

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krum t1_j9wn21y wrote

Google should be billing news orgs to be aggregated. I don't know how they keep screwing this up.

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Bright-Ad-4737 t1_j9wnj55 wrote

The CBC has been around since 1936. How has its funding changed since then, and then since the Trudeau administration?

It's one thing to make a pithy comment like "CBC isn't going anywhere with how much money his government has funnelled into it" and it's another to provide any kind of context with the statement. How much money has he "funnelled" into it? How does that compared to other governments? Should the CBC even be "going somewhere"? Why or why not?

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ShadyTee t1_j9wo006 wrote

Genuinely curious how Canada is able to force Google to pay? Is it because they have servers or offices in Canada that subjects them to Canadian law?

1

Nivekk_ t1_j9wvgba wrote

Does anybody actually rely on Google for news?

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Xenophore t1_j9wwd74 wrote

The sooner Justin Castreau and his minions are voted out of office, the better.

−8

Nonamanadus t1_j9wxz68 wrote

Trudea should get off his high horse, if he cared about "Canadian news" he should open up the files on Chinese interference in the electoral process.

Clean up your own damn house before lecturing on the podium.

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stinkerb t1_j9wysu2 wrote

Trudeau loves censorship so much, I thought for sure he'd like this.

−2

Apart_Ad_5993 t1_j9x0iwo wrote

Government again not understanding how the internet works.

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FreekFrealy t1_j9x0jow wrote

This is a perfect example of politicians legislating on things they clearly don't understand

>“It really surprises me that Google has decided that they’d rather prevent Canadians from accessing news than actually paying journalists for the work they do,” Trudeau said.

Really? He's surprised a company isn't willing to pay to provide a service to another?

Every website on the internet has the power to not be listed on search engines, hell as a redditor you can even flag your account to not be listed on search engines, and yet all of these news orgs still choose to be listed without needing to be paid for the privilege. Because it benefits them.

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worldbasis t1_j9x0yzf wrote

Trudeau has no clue what he is doing.

15

Slippedhal0 t1_j9x15sa wrote

I'm pretty sure Australia already makes google pay in the exact same way.

EDIT: After double checking the wording it seems like its even just the linked search results - which doesn't make sense to me - search engines increase traffic to websites, if anything news sites should be paying google for its huge audience.

The most i would agree to is that search engines should pay for content if they summarize the web pages content in such away that the user no longer needs to follow the link to the original source, reducing site traffic

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smeno t1_j9x3uqu wrote

Germany tried the same thing some years ago and the newspapers came back to Google on their knees, begging to promote them for free.

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Westfakia t1_j9x5dqn wrote

CBC, ctv and global, torstar, etc are big enough with their target market that their viewers can find them without googles help. There are plenty of times I’ll go look for a story at cbc.com rather than google it because I value what cbc would write more than the process of scanning through search results.

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iwillrememberthisacc t1_j9x6t79 wrote

This is just a straight shakedown abusing government powers by news orgs. They saw what happened in Australia and are now all coming after that google cash. It's insane they think that google should pay them for literally giving them more business for free good on Google for not backing down this time.

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WarAndGeese t1_j9x7keo wrote

Canada should legislate to require the platform to push a certain amount of Canadian content. First to Canadian users, but after that footing is gained other people will want to see that content too anyway, so there will be demand for it. They have done it with radio and television play, to require a certain amount (or percentage of time) broadcasted to be by Canadian artists. They can do it again with this if they leglislate it. Companies like Google won't back away because they want to be in that market.

−14

SquashedKiwifruit t1_j9xkcxv wrote

I don't understand this law really.

Where sites like Facebook are taking elements of the content, and displaying it to users, in a manner which means they won't go to the news website (so the news website has no chance of making revenue / displaying an ad / getting a new sign up. For example, a post which contains a headline and a summary of its content (not just the first line). Then yes Facebook/Google/Whoever should pay.

But if the site is doing nothing more than showing a link to the news article in search results, with perhaps at most one sentence which is just the first few words of the article. That encourages users to access the website to read more, and is favourable to the news site. Google should not pay for that. That is driving people to the news website, where they can show ads to users.

Reading this article - it sounds like they are wanting them to pay for search results (correct me if I am wrong?). If that is the case I don't blame google, that seems ridiculous.

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smp7401 t1_j9xoucz wrote

I am of the opinion that Canada is making a mistake with this law.

Time will determine which one turns-out to be right.

I hope it turns-out to be Google’s mistake, but I suspect it will turn-out to be Canada’s.

Regardless, it will unfortunately be average people bearing the consequences of corporate greed and shortsightedness (that’s on both sides of this issue btw - Google’s and media organizations) regardless as usual.

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TheHumbleGeek t1_j9xq535 wrote

Okie dokie.... Since you seek context....

The CBC has NEVER really been super-profitable. That was never the point. It was started to create and promote CANADIAN content and content creators. HOWEVER, as time has gone on, more and more canadian citizens have clued into the concept that CBC is an incredibly biased organisation who plays favorites with the type of content it produces. "Well, so what? They are a business and can create whatever content they choose." EXCEPT, no they cannot. The CBC is a crown corporation. If it is NOT okay for any crown corporation to display a centre-right or conservative bias, then it is likewise not okay for any crown corporation to have a centre-left or Liberal bias either.

Further to this, despite it being a crown corporation, since 2016, they have been marketing content under the Tandem brand, which allows them to create ads that look and present like a CBC newscast, AND which allows their corporate clients to "leverage the trust of our customer base".

Now, specifically regarding my comment about the money that Turdeau has funneled into it, the Liberal government, as a part of its budget in 2020/2021 included an addition 34 million dollars to account for "revenue lost due to the pandemic". Now, IF they were unbiased and had not become a publicly funded commercial corporation, I personally wouldn't have had an issue with the additional funds. I happen to believe strongly in the idea that if a business is so poorly managed that it SHOULD go bankrupt, then one of two things MUST happen. Either bail it out, fire everyone from department heads up, and only rehire people who can demonstrate the ability to run their department efficiently; OR let it fail and let another company pick up the pieces. In the case of the CBC, let it fail and let another Canadian producer buy the pieces. Either way, you stop rewarding the stupid people who are bad at math, and start rewarding the people who can run a business successfully, of which Canada has LOTS.

−3

AdligaTitlar t1_j9xt9v9 wrote

I was mostly referring to it being mostly government propaganda "The canadian journalists? ALL of them, or just the ones the Canadian government approves of?"

and he's saying it's NOT going anywhere because it's a propaganda tool funded by the government. So again, you're agreeing with him without recognizing it. It's not "going somewhere" (as in going broke/closing doors/going bankrupt) because it is a valuable tool for the government.

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nerfyies t1_j9xuuaf wrote

You are actually a bit wrong, I actually worked in this space on the technical side, google has a system called rich results, you basically provide Google with a schema that they use to show a summary on the search result. A rich result is for example adding the image of news article directly on the search page but other types of data like faq (some of those drop down questions you see in results are provided by websites) . This mostly benefits the news website as they get free clicks since google promotes this content an places it at the top for free.

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SamLooksAt t1_j9xzy31 wrote

You have to use our product and you have to pay for it!

Seriously though, by all means charge people for using something.

Just don't be surprised or bitter if they decide not to use it.

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Bright-Ad-4737 t1_j9y0dvx wrote

This is one of the dumbest responses I have ever read. I'm not even a particular defender of the CBC, but this feels like it was written by someone with absolutely no business background or experience whatsoever.

Forget about first year business analysts at any major bank, interns at local credit unions could provide superior analysis. Hell, you can see better written work in shitty business schools.

I could attempt at a response to this, but it's so stupid, it's not worth my time.

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neutrilreddit t1_j9y61tb wrote

Yea. Google isn't the reason why these news organizations are losing money.

I can't speak for the role of facebook and other social media, but another major culprit would be the thousands of low effort click-bait ad-driven blogs and news aggregators on the other hand, that do zero original reporting but just repaste the same stuff from the original news websites, which also junk up the google search results even worse.

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MasterFubar t1_j9yac6s wrote

Canada making 'terrible mistake' in creating stupid legislation: me.

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daniel_bran t1_j9yacq1 wrote

Charge google every penny you can. Google had been using as products for advertisers for many years

−7

daniel_bran t1_j9yaxuo wrote

Google cannot exist without these orgs content.

Google does not produce content.

Google is a parasite that takes other websites content and puts its own ads on it to make a buck off others sweat

−53

vikumwijekoon97 t1_j9ybsfd wrote

Google can easily exist without them. Do you really think people actually give a fuck about news now? In Canada the first actual news website comes at 37 in visits. 3 porn websites have more numbers than the top news website

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Pierson230 t1_j9yeheg wrote

Google is a rent seeking monopoly at this point, so I understand the sentiment, but this strategy won’t work.

−1

michaelrulaz t1_j9yft2b wrote

Or the fact that you have to pay money to see most of these sites. I’m not interested in reading an article on the New York Times for $10.99 or whatever. I’ll just look elsewhere if I care or more than likely, I won’t look at all

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tomis28 t1_j9yoffy wrote

Fidel Castro's son is in the news again?

−1

F4il3d t1_j9ypopz wrote

As expected "do no evil" was really "do no evil ^(unless it affects the bottom line) "

−8

vikumwijekoon97 t1_j9ytshu wrote

Nah I just happen to understand how leverage works. This is news corporations trying to bite the hand that feeds them. Like what can they actually do if Google decides to not to show them? Make their own search engine?

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JKMerlin t1_j9yvuoe wrote

I use reddit, because I value the comment section almost as much or more than the article. (mostly) real people talking about an issue seems better than one person being paid to gather clicks

3

nicuramar t1_j9z0hsm wrote

> This is a perfect example of politicians legislating on things they clearly don’t understand

Or do understand but don’t agree with you on, is also possible. It can sometimes be easy to confuse those two.

−9

LevelWriting t1_j9z3077 wrote

most canadian news are bought by trudick, so fuck em.

−1

MannerAlarming6150 t1_j9zg0gc wrote

But my friend, that's not what is happening.

Canada said pay the news for using their content or stop using their content.

Google agreed to stop using their content.

Now people are mad that Google is not using their content?

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danielnogo t1_j9zokkk wrote

Lol, this is just blatantly, stupidly false, the internet wouldn't exist in its current form without search engines making websites easily findable and accessible, you obviously weren't around back in the day before search engines became a big thing, you had to hear of websites by basically word of mouth. I'd love to see you create something that can catalog billions of websites and deliver search results about them in fractions of a second, websites like Google are kind of amazing when you consider how much data they have to store about these websites and how quickly it's delivered. Most of these websites would get zero traction or visits if it weren't for websites like Google, sure Google exist to show other websites and they make money from placing ads on the pages that link to other websites and Google sometimes sucks with their decision making, but it cannot be understated how important Google was to the development of the internet as we know it today. Lots of people wouldn't even be able to use the internet without sites like Google, lots of old people barely even know what an address bar is, they just Google the websites they want to visit.

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Leafybug13 t1_j9zqoot wrote

"He said the last year the Liberal government spent $8.7 million directly"

Google: What's a "million"?

1

TheHumbleGeek t1_j9zrf4r wrote

Oh come on, thats the best insult you can come up with? Whats next, a 'yo momma' joke?

It would have been more laughable if you said tried "tell me you are from alberta, without telling me you are from alberta", like some of these other idiot commenters did...

Seriously, the 'holier than thou' bullshit you are trying to pull only works when you can ACTUALLY respond. So, take a few days, do some research on the CBC, on their continued blatant biases, on their bungling management style... Then come back, and post an actual response... Hell, if you think that someone in a shitty business school could respond better, then I challenge you to try to educate me and people like me, instead of defaulting to arrogance and avoidance. Point out what I got wrong, provide correct AND FACTUAL information from reputable sources, and maybe the collective ability of our country goes up?

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FreekFrealy t1_j9zzb0p wrote

Did he or did he not understand when crafting this legislation that Google would never agree to pay to list a site and as a result would de list sites subject to this legislation?

And I'm assuming too much by taking him at his word that he didn't understand this would happen?

2

Kyouhen t1_j9zzbfo wrote

Posting here for future reference. I do breakdowns on Bills to see what they actually do versus what everyone's saying they do. Considering the nature of this Bill I'm skeptical of anything Google/Facebook/etc and most new agencies say about it. The big companies declaring they're going to stop offering news services are only concerned with money, so one way or the other the Bill is affecting their income and I don't quite trust them to be honest about why.

I'll see about doing a writeup on this one in the next few days and will get back to you once I've gone through just what it does.

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nicuramar t1_j9zznrs wrote

> Did he or did he not understand when crafting this legislation that Google would never agree to pay to list a site and as a result would de list sites subject to this legislation?

I’m sure he had considered that possibility. But when communicating politically, things tend to get angled a bit.

> And I’m assuming too much by taking him at his word that he didn’t understand this would happen?

Well, it’s politics :p. But I also don’t agree that he couldn’t be surprised even if he understands the issue.

0

FreekFrealy t1_ja046rq wrote

He certainly had access to experts who understood that I have no doubt tried to impress on him the reality of what would happen.

But he saw his problem "Journalists need money" and tried to find a way to treat a foreign company as a cash pinata for that need even though they had neither the justification or even the necessary leverage to do it.

He's a smart guy and definitely had the matter explained to him. Problem is you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. There's another saying that doesn't perfectly apply in this situation but is definitely in the same vein: "Don't bother trying to make a man understand something that his paycheck depends on not understanding".

1

_first_ t1_ja0b3fz wrote

Sites managers who do not wish their content to be indexed have to update a file present on pretty much every website in existence named robots.txt. They should also decorate their pages with a tag named 'noindex' for the case where a third party site links to your pages. All major web indexes will honor either or both settings.

1

Secret-Resort-8592 t1_ja0f4r6 wrote

Canada has been harboring terrorists from all over the world

−1

Present-Book-7867 t1_ja0im22 wrote

I support the bill but idk why it seems they’re targeting google. They are like the least shadiest tech company. Go after Facebook and Twitter where most of our pocket of delusionals get brainwashed from

3

GrowCanadian t1_ja0of4f wrote

This should get even more interesting when Bings ChatGPT has full public access. It will summarize stuff in the search engine so you really won’t have a reason to go to the original site.

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SquashedKiwifruit t1_ja0s255 wrote

That response doesn’t really make sense to me because a person using a search engine is searching for something.

To the extent they are looking for news, they just already know about it so it suggests they are looking for further reading. You wouldn’t search for headlines about something you already know of surely?

If they don’t click through it must not have been of interest?

It seems to me that if they were going to have to pay for the item merely being listed, irrespective of if someone interacted with it, then if I was google I simply wouldn’t show that content in search results either.

Now if google was summarising the content beyond just the headline - I would agree with you. They should pay because they are taking the content and summarising it so a person wouldnt need to read it. But that doesn’t seem to be the case?

Facebook and reddit is a little different because unlike google there is an interactive forum. So the comments usually do summarise the content.

4

AmputatorBot t1_ja1k1xz wrote

It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of concerns over privacy and the Open Web. Fully cached AMP pages (like the one you shared), are especially problematic.

Maybe check out the canonical page instead: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/postmedia-signs-deal-with-google-to-be-compensated-for-news-articles


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1

kevin5lynn t1_ja2u9w8 wrote

Google isn’t « blocking » the news. It’s all still there at news.com (insert your favorite news outlet).

1

Nocturne444 t1_ja480dc wrote

You know what happens if my Netflix is pushing me Canadian content? I won’t watch them if I don’t want too. Same with Spotify, if I don’t feel like listening to the last album of x Canadian artist. You could promote that content 10x a day to me that won’t change what I consume.

1

Miserable-Ad3196 t1_ja4vm20 wrote

Duck duck go I would suggest. Using for years, quite happy.

1

EldrSentry t1_ja54bmi wrote

Google should just paywall the news with a little notice as to why it now costs money. it doesn't seem to be a winning strategy for them so far of just blocking it

1

sixoklok t1_ja7wjl3 wrote

Google has become absolute shit the last few years, it is useless for any serious web search.

Fuck google.

1