Unknown: Today we're talking about whether or not Google
might actually leave Australia. And this is, you know, pretty
damn scary that it's been in the news recently, that there is a
potential for Google to change their business strategy in
Australia, for anyone who's not yet familiar with it genius. So
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So let's talk about potential for Google to exit Australia and
the threats that have been going around in the Australian media
at the moment, because it's a Yeah, pretty wild. And, you
know, pretty scary thing, especially when our whole
business is, is run on Google. And we use Google every day. And
many of us as consumers, obviously use Google all the
time as well. Why would Google threaten something like actually
leaving us Australia must be pretty serious, right? Well, it
is. And it's called the news media bargaining code. And this
is one of the first in the world and there is a similar one in in
European in France, I think it is, which Google have been able
to reach agreements with news publishers, and have that
basically settled with that. But the Australian one is, is
effectively something that says that when news organizations are
publishing content, they want to be compensated for that. And
they want to be compensated for that for the kind of content
that appears in Google's search results. So inside Google search
results, Google will highlight news stories. And basically,
Google works by crawling the web and finding all the web pages on
the web and news sites to some of those web pages. And Google
displays them in their search results. And basically, what the
media agencies are arguing is they're saying, well, we want to
be compensated for for our valuable content that is
attracting your users. And so if users are on your platform, on
Google search, we want to be compensated for the traffic that
is actually going to our sites because we're not just giving
value to the users by reading the news website, we're giving
value to Google, by actually having users go to Google to get
their news. Now, it's very interesting. And I'm going to
dig deep into kind of like what the different arguments are
different sides of this, because I've done some research on it.
But that's effectively what is coming into place. And Google is
saying they don't like the terms of the law, as it is currently
proposed. And if it is implemented, as proposed, they
will be withdrawing Google search from Australia, they say
they're saying they would have to withdraw Google search from
Australia. Now Facebook are actually in the same situation.
And they've not said that they're going to switch off
Facebook for Australia, but that they may limit some new search
results or content on the Facebook platform, which is also
pretty interesting. But I'm going to cover the Google story
as much as possible. So let's try and understand both sides of
the argument here. I think the most important thing for you to
understand in all of this is that when we use a platform for
free, and by this I mean Gmail for free, or Google search for
free, or we're going to use the example of Facebook as well. You
are actually not the customer, you are the product. And this
has been kind of thrown around a bit in the last couple of years.
And what that basically means is when you're using something for
free, your data and the value of your data to advertisers is
actually the product So you're not really using a service like
in a way you are the service, you're the value that's being
created. And capturing that value is what these news
organizations are using as their central argument. They're saying
that we're basically contributing to that value
creation that's happening in the the user of Google search,
you're actually using the product. And so they're
basically saying, We want a piece of that pie. That's pretty
much what they're saying. And so these newsmakers Yes, they're
certainly, you know, they're certainly valuable in the news
that they are creating their businesses are certainly
changing. And I'm going to cover some more of that. And and
that's certainly a fair point. But there is a little bit of a
problem with that. There's a bit of a problem with that. And the
problem with the argument of like, Hey, we just want a piece
of that pie is that basically, Google have built this business
and Facebook have built this business as a valuable place for
us as users to actually use,
that doesn't necessarily mean that automatically, news
publishers get a piece of that, and their business has been
changing. We're going to cover that in a moment. You know, why,
why that's actually been happening. But the the problem
with how this code has been structured right now, is that if
it was implemented, the way it is that Google has to start
paying someone for the links that they send, literally, and
I'm going to use the line here of the Google Australia, leader,
Mel Silva, it would literally break the way that the intimate
internet works, because links are free. And the moment that
you say, Okay, well, someone has to pay a fee for that link, or
pay a fee for that traffic on that link. It basically, I mean,
it completely breaks the model of a search engine, which is
showing you how to find things on the internet. But also, it
sets a bit of a dangerous precedent. And the dangerous
precedent is that someone might say, Well, you know, any other
website that is receiving traffic from Google should also
be compensated for that. Now, it's a bit like saying that I
create videos on YouTube, I put out videos on YouTube.
Therefore, I should get paid by Google for that content, aside
from the money that I make promoting our services, in those
videos that I make on YouTube. Now, interestingly, Google
actually do have a partner program, if you have enough
views and subscribers on YouTube, you can actually start
getting paid for your content. And that's a partnership between
content creators, and between Google. And that's basically
what Google have proposed for news organizations. And I'll
cover a little bit more about that in a second. Anyway, Google
have in response to what has been proposed, they've put up a
public letter. And there's a video from Mel Silva, who's the
director for Google Australia, you know, basically addressing
this. And I think they did a pretty good job of addressing
why this is important. And they've got, you know, like an
open, open letter there and those kind of things, giving you
a bit of an idea of what Google's of what Google's kind
of position is there. But it doesn't quite cover the full
story. And so we're going to go a little bit deeper into it. I
want to talk about well, why is this become a problem now? Like,
why has this turned into a problem now, and effectively,
one of the biggest issues that's actually happened recently, is
that the landscape of digital publishers has changed. And so
you've got newspapers and news publishers who previously got
most of their revenue from classifieds, and a lot of that
classifieds revenue has dropped off. And I think it's something
like it went from four and a half billion dollars a year in
Australia, down to $3 billion a year, which is a pretty big
drop, and that's over the past five or 10 years. And so this
transition to, you know, more digital commerce, the argument
of, or the the presupposition of the US publishers is that, well,
Google's getting all of that revenue. But that's not actually
the full story. It's not quite the case, a lot of the revenue
that was previously going to classifieds inside newspapers,
and now actually going to seek.com, or car sales.com. And
these other websites, which are now actually selling things
online, and I would say probably Gumtree, eBay, Facebook
marketplace, those kind of apps are where a lot of commerce is
going, rather than classifieds. And advertising is obviously
switching to online as well. So very different plays to what was
previously happening in the newspapers. Now, is that
Google's fault? No, not necessarily. That's just, in my
opinion, a change in dynamics in a market. And that's capitalism.
And Google has just showed up to fill in a hole that has been
created. So is that like Google coming in and doing a bad thing?
And like stealing the revenue of these publishers? No, not
necessarily. However, we cannot deny that the business model of
these publishers is changing. And they have a fair argument
that quality journalism and actually sharing important news
has value and if there is value being created inside the Google
platform or inside the Facebook platform in the form of the
analytics and the data on the users that is, in part being
supported by the news organizations. Well, you know,
they've got a fair point that, you know, potentially there
should be some compensation. So Google basically want to get
data on the users and Google are using data and analytics from
users behaviors for advertising. But interestingly, Google don't
use much data on the news interests of people
for advertising, Google get most of their revenue from
advertising, when someone searches for something like and
this is on the Google open letter, when someone searches
for I want to find some running shoes, right? That's where they
get most of their value. Now, yes, it's valuable for someone
to go to Google for everything. But I think it's a bit of a tall
order for the newspapers to say, well, just because you get data
on users, we want a piece of that value creation. So Google's
solution is something called Google News showcase, which is
what they have started rolling out in parts of Europe, not yet
available in Australia. But basically, they've committed to
making it available in Australia, if they can negotiate
with the, you know, policymakers for this to be a fair system.
And this is effectively, I would say, in a way similar to the
idea of the YouTube creator contributor program, where the
creators will actually be paid for their content. And so what
that means is there is a way for value exchange to happen to
publishers. So that's basically what Google are proposing. And
what they're saying is that this needs to be negotiated before we
just slap in the law as it's being proposed currently,
because that may have some issues with how it's currently
interpreted. So what does that mean for you? And is there any
actual risk to your business? What most people are worrying
about is, you know, is there going to be a change to Google
workspace? Or is something going to change with the way that I
use Google day to day? Well, for now, I think the most important
thing to know is that the government are starting to bring
these tech companies into check, they've already gone after them
for taxation. And, you know, being, you know, domiciled
overseas and Google are now paying up to $100 million a year
in Australian Federal Tax, which is pretty good. That's good for
our economy. The other thing is that in terms of privacy in
terms of user protection, and now in terms of, you know,
making sure that these organizations are playing fairly
with the rest of the market, Google being kept in check by
governments, I think that's a good thing. Overall, I do think
that governments should actually be working with these companies
to make sure that things work out. But overall, I think it's a
good thing that large tech companies are kept in check to
make sure that everything has been done well. Effectively, we
want to make sure that there's a harmonious ecosystem for all of
the players. That's government, that's people, and that's the
tech businesses as well, who are just participating in our
economy. That's how business works. So is your Google
workspace account actually at risk? Is there anything that
could happen to your Google workspace account? And could
there be any problems there? In my opinion, it's a hard No, it's
very unlikely that anything would happen with Google
workspace. And that's because Google search is very, very
different to Google Cloud and the rest of the Google
productivity tools. Google is actually a large company under
alphabet, which is what was Google was renamed to. And you
can see here that there's all different areas of the business
as Google nest, Google Ventures and Google capital, more on the
capital side of things. They've got Wei Mo, which of their self
driving cars, Google Cloud is just one part of the business.
But you can see that Google search is a completely different
business unit to Google Cloud. And Google workspace actually
falls under Google Cloud. So when Google say, Hey, we're like
getting out of here. In terms of Australia, what that actually
means is that Google Search may be restricted in Australia. And
that would be pretty interesting to see, like, if we had a Google
without search in Australia, it would mean no Google Maps, it
would mean no Google My Business, it would mean that we
wouldn't get the normal search results. And I don't really want
to have to use Bing, I don't want to have to resort to using
being so I really hope that they can work things out. And if
you're interested in in putting in submissions, I don't think
they're taking submissions from the public. But organizations
are certainly able to put in submissions. And for me, it's
just kind of like Fingers crossed at the moment, I'm sure
that they're gonna find a way to work it out. But I am
appreciating the public discourse in this because I
think it raises a great conversation for what is the,
you know, value of journalism, and also for everyone to just be
mindful that, you know, when we're using a product like
Google search for free, the data that that's actually utilizing
from us is the product and that is the value that's being
created. And we are effectively exchanging value with these
tools, every time that we're connecting with that tool and
connected with that service. Now, if you're a business owner,
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And until next time. Catch you guys soon. See you later.