It's certainly true that Murdoch has an outsized influence in Australia, but I don't believe this particular incident is a case of Google versus Murdoch. I think this was a fairly clear case of Google violating Australia's very robust consumer protections. It's something Australia takes very seriously, and it's a big mistake to run afoul of the ACCC.
Look at the past record of the ACCC. When their media code ultimately just resulted in Google and Facebook paying Murdoch and 9, the commissioner said that was his plan all along.
[Rod Sims] said last week: “It doesn’t matter a toss what the money is paid for.”
At an on-the-record Q&A event in Melbourne last week, Mr Sims said: “For reasons of their own, Google and Facebook strongly don’t want to pay for news on search and news feed. Fine. The news media companies don’t care what the money is for. So I just think it’s a perfect outcome.”
“But”, I followed up, “this does nothing to address the dominance of Google and Facebook”.
“This is one problem at a time”, Sims responded.
“The problem we’re addressing with the news media code is simply that we wanted to arrest the decline in money going to journalism. That’s what the code is about – getting more money into journalism, and I personally think the money going into Seven and Nine, what’s been publicly reported, which is north of $30 million, will make a big difference.”
When I pointed out that there is nothing in the code that makes the companies spend the money on journalism, rather than dividends or executive bonuses, he replied that “the world is watching what they do”.
Q: What's the difference between a thug who threatens to break in your windows unless you pay up and Rod Sims?
A: Rod Sims is paid three quarters of a million dollars a year by the taxpayer and has the gall to claim he's acting in the public interest.
We shouldn't assume the ACCC are acting in good faith in this case because we know they haven't historically, instead waging an ideological campaign against tech companies.
Are you seriously suggesting one shouldn't take an institution's history into account when looking at a case? Like if the KKK does something, we should completely ignore their history of racism in figuring out what happened? That's absurd.
ACCC hasn't taken any interest in privacy for decades. The first time they showed an interest was the very same digital platforms review in 2018 that also led to them extorting Google and Facebook to hand over cash to Murdoch. We don't even have decent privacy laws, so the ACCC have been quite open about using section 18 of the consumer law as a means to enforce privacy standards against tech companies (said section is a vague prohibition on misleading or deceptive conduct, which can be interpreted as broadly as the ACCC likes which means it can be easily weaponised against whomever).
Australia has very high levels of market concentration and the ACCC is widely derided for failing to ensure competition. This is not a competent regulator. Of course one of the most concentrated industries is the media, which also hates tech companies, so the seeming alliance between the ACCC and traditional media conglomerates is of interest when considering their crusade against big-tech.
Regulatory capture is a well-known phenomenon, and it's especially dangerous when the captured regulators destroy competing industries. A recent example being the FDA's attacks on e-cigarettes because they've long been partially captured by traditional tobacco companies.
A month after that was published btw, Matt Holman, chief of the office of science in the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, left for Philip Morris, a competitor to Juul's owner. This is how things work, it's just harder to find out about when it comes to Australia because, again, we don't have a functioning press, thanks to the ACCC.
> Are you seriously suggesting one shouldn't take an institution's history into account when looking at a case? Like if the KKK does something, we should completely ignore their history of racism in figuring out what happened? That's absurd.
Only if that history has something to do with the case in hand. If KKK lynched a white man, for no racist reasons, why do you think that we should be discussing their racist history instead of the facts of this specific case? Don't you think that it is absurd to claim that the only motivation for KKK doing absolutely anything is racism?
Now, if KKK lynched a white man for marrying a black woman... well that would be a different story.
So, what is your "black woman" for the case that is on discussion here?
This isn't just lynching another black man, it's lynching the same black man. Google was the target in both cases. As such it's obviously pertinent to look at what motivated them go after Google the first time, which as I said is because they've been captured by traditional media interests.
Ah, so you are in fact claiming that KKK can only ever have one motive for doing anything. I find that quite absurd. Notice that with all the words that you have written here not one of them is about the actual case being discussed, wonder why that is.
I'm claiming the KKK only have one motive for lynching black men.
There's no media coverage on this case because we don't have a proper press thanks to the ACCC, but it's a ridiculous case on the face of it. I use location data covertly stolen from users who've installed various apps at work (we don't do anything nefarious with it but there's no reason someone couldn't). The ACCC doesn't care about privacy or consumer protections unless it involves big tech, as anyone familiar with its history can attest.
When it comes to Murdoch related things, I often think it’s likely to be both, since Google can violate the law and the ACCC entirely appropriate to punish them, and it can be profitable for the Murdoch family to tip the scales in order to make life harder for Google in Australia, so when something like this comes up it’s in their best interest to stoke the fire and make sure the public knows Google did something wrong, to encourage them to file the appropriate complaints, etc… and so what might have been a 25 million dollar problem for Google with $arbitrary ongoing compliance costs, becomes 50 million dollar problem with $arbitrary x 1.5 ongoing compliance costs.
