Google threatens to shut down search in Australia if it is forced to pay news publishers for content

Google has threatened to take its search engine out of a country with more than 20 billion users in Australia if the government enacts a law that sets the platform that technology platforms should pay for publishing news in search results.

“If this is the version [media] The code would become law, it wouldn’t give it a real chance, rather than making Google Search available in Australia, ”Google and New Zealand Vice President Melanie Silva told Australia’s Senate Economic Legislature to the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday. reported.

The statement was followed up with Facebook, which is when Google was heard in the Senate he asked a six-month grace period for the country to deal directly with the news before it is subject to the code.

Google and Facebook they have been negotiating code with the Australian government from December 2019. The country has long sought the first technology platform that launders most of the world’s digital advertising revenue, forcing it to display content from directly successful news publishers. therefore. The move could have worldwide effects, including in the United States.

A few hours before Silva’s notes, Google ados paying for news publications in France for displaying content. But in Australia, the company argued that requiring platforms to pay for links would violate a basic principle of the Internet – that sites should be able to link to each other freely.

“Just as you don’t pay to include a hyperlink in your email, websites and search engines don’t pay you to provide links to third-party websites,” Google wrote blog post. “It would be like asking the phone directory to pay for business – it just makes sense.”

In response to Silva’s statements, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused. “We don’t respond to threats,” he said they told reporters Brisbanen. “Australia makes our rules for the things you can do in Australia. That is what is done in our Parliament. Our government has done it. And that’s how things work here in Australia. ‘