Google will pull news links in Canada in response to new law
Google will pull news links in Canada in response to new law
Google is pulling news links from its search and news features in Canada after the passage of a new law..
Honestly, I don't know what the lawmakers expected. The bill is dumb. It'd be perfectly fine to require payment for copying a substantial amount of a new article (eg, if they want to prevent google from offering a public cache that gets around paywalls). But the bill outright requires paying to link to Canadian news sites in search results. That's outright madness.
Y'all can hate google and meta all you want. That's totally fine. I encourage you to use competing search engines (it's bad that Google has a near monopoly). But this bill is a bad bill.
The folks on this site might know about alternatives, but the average person doesn't. When the average person can't find Canadian news sites on Google, they're not going to switch to duck duck go or whatever. They're going to just use a non Canadian site. This bill is going to hurt Canadian news companies and it's disappointing to see people cheering it on because you're happier to see Google and meta hurt than you are sorry to see Canadian news sites hurt...
yeah the scraping content is the issue, not the linking. So this bill is pretty stupidly formed. They can simple require google/meta only provide line, title and max 250 letters abstract/trimmed first paragraph(excluding space and punctuation.)
They(Canadian medias) want the traffic to their site so they can display sponsor ads or sell subscriptions.
It's the control over the advertising that's the issue. Scraping content is fine, as long as it's following copyright laws.
The issue is that the Toronto Star used to make most of their money by being able to offer prime advertising space next to its articles. The rest of their money was from subscriptions and newspaper sales, which people were willing to pay because it was the only way to get the news in a portable form.
More money for newspaper ads meant more money available to journalists, which made the advertising space next to those columns more valuable. It was a virtuous cycle where the better your journalists were, the more valuable the ad space next to them became. Nowadays, Meta and Google control that ad space and take a massive cut of any ad shown there.
At the same time, someone doesn't need to own a printing press to make an article available, thanks to the Internet. That means that mediocre quality "citizen journalism" and low-quality press releases compete for ad space in a way they didn't in the heyday of print journalism. The idea of "buying a newspaper" is gone and will probably never come back because mobile internet meant that getting access to news (and other content) was just so easy.
Meta and Google get virtually all their money from ads. The way to reduce their impact on Canadian journalism isn't to force them to pay some kind of "link tax", it's to address their ads monopoly and give back control over ads to the publishers.
I believe the meta data of the links are scrapped from the meta tags in the header of the site. The info you see before clicking a link was configured by the host for that purpose.
Exactly. I’m not sure what lawmakers were expecting. Don’t Canadian news sites make money off of ads and traffic to their site? Why would they require special treatment and compensation for merely linking to their news sites and articles?
Might I suggest accessing daily newspapers and magazines electronically with PressReader? You can do so for free (or tax dollars you are already paying lol) using your local public library card, if they are subscribed to this service.
With your library card:
Visit PressReader.com and click "Sign in". A pop-up labelled "Welcome to PressReader" will appear.
Click the blue "Library or Group" button on the lower left side of the pop-up. A longer pop-up labelled "Select Library" will appear.
Click "Search Libraries and Groups" and type in your city or local public library's name. A list of matching results will automatically appear as you type.
Click your library in the list of results. A new pop-up labelled "Library or Group Sign In" will appear.
If there are text fields for your Library card number and PIN, fill those in and click on the checkbox next to "I agree to allowing PressReader to verify and exchange my registration with my public library." Then click the green "Log In" button at the bottom.
If the new pop-up simply has a green "Sign in" button underneath your library's name, click it to be redirected to your local library's website to log in.
Unfortunately, not every public library can afford to subscribe to this service. Also, some libraries do not show up on the PressReader.com "Search Libraries and Groups" list even if they do have access available via their own website. If these instructions do not work, please visit your local public library website or branch for additional information or assistance.
Thank you for providing this information.
And thank you for thanking them.
Can PressReader give me daily notifications on my phone with news articles that are relevant to me?
Great question!
The services I can think of that allow full-access aren't quite as easy to use as Google News at this time, but here is what I have come up with:
PressReader has a "For You" page that can show you top stories based on reader engagement from any of their publications. You can also create a PressReader account free-of-charge to follow specific publications, sections, journalists and interests.
Another service I would recommend to receive notifications is Canadian Newsstream by ProQuest. This service is a regularly-updated database of news stories from most major newspapers in Canada.
Note that licensing agreements restrict some publications' stories from being uploaded to Newsstream for one or two days, so I would recommend using this in addition to PressReader, which is more current.
You can use Newsstream to search for stories using highly-specific search queries, and request to be sent scheduled email or RSS alerts for any new query results once they are uploaded into the database.
PressReader "For You" Page
Once you have logged in to PressReader.com using your library card:
In the top left corner of PressReader, click "For You". The page will change. (Note that it may take a few minutes to load if the service is very busy.)
On the left side, there will be a menu with the following:
- "Language & Region", where you can select a country and language you would like to see top stories with;
- "For You", with top stories about different topics based on the Language & Region you chose;
- "Following", where you can see stories from your selected publications, newspaper sections, interests and journalists; and
- "Saved Searches", where you can save keyword searches to see if there are any new updates.
Note that 3. "Following" and 4. "Saved Searches" require a free PressReader account in addition to your public library access authorization. You can register for one by clicking the green "Sign up" button on the top right corner of the page after you have signed in through your public library.
ProQuest Canadian Newsstream
Your best bet to access this service is through your local public library's website. If they have it, you will most likely find a link to log into it in the "news" or "newspaper" section of the site's "digital collections", "digital library", or "bibliothèque numérique" page.
Once logged in, you will be at Canadian Newsstream's "Basic Search" page. You can begin keyword searching in the text field, or click "Advanced Search" underneath the main "Canadian Newsstream" header for more options.
Visit the ProQuest LibGuides for more information and instructions on creating library database search queries.
Once you have run your search, you will be at the results page. Here, you can edit your search query and change the filter settings on the left-side menu. Consider this a preview of the kind of stories you can choose to receive email notifications for.
When you are happy with the kind of results you see, click "Save search/alert" on the top right of the page just underneath the search bar. A drop-down menu will appear.
In the drop-down menu, click "Create alert" for email notifications, or "Create RSS feed" for a personalized feed you can add to your RSS reader. A pop-up will appear.
Follow the instructions in the pop-up, and you will be notified of new articles that match your search via email or RSS.
I would suggest keeping a different alert for each topic you want to follow. This will make it easier to cancel or adjust just one topic as you need to.
You can also create a free ProQuest My Research account so you can view and manage all your alerts all at once.
These steps are quite a bit more involved than simple Googling, but you get complete control over what you are searching for. The fact that you get to decide these small granular search parameters means that there are no secret algorithms deciding for you.
Thank you again for your attention. If you have any questions about using these services, I would encourage you to contact your local public library, where the staff will be able to assist you better.
Can you please write a Lemmy bot that scrapes from PressReader and publishes links here?
I'm not going to lose sleep over this. It's posturing. Google's threatening to "go on strike" to ratchet up the pressure.
These are all capitalist enterprises and they'll find a resolution so they can keep making money. Or they won't. The way that the law is written, small news aggregators that don't enjoy a power advantage over the publishers could step into this space. Maybe this is a small business opportunity for local techies. :)
Google’s threatening to “go on strike” to ratchet up the pressure.
And it will work. It doesn't hurt them much, but it's devastating to the media companies because most of their traffic comes from Meta and Google.
If Jane Doe searches for "wildfires" and would have seen a story by the Toronto Star in her search results, she might have clicked it. If Google stops linking to the Star and instead now just links to a YouTube video of the wildfires, or a blog from someone nearby, Jane might click there instead. Since Google gets ad money from those sources too, it has zero effect on their bottom line, but destroys the traffic to the Star.
It's why this "link tax" scheme failed in Germany, it failed in Australia, it's failed everywhere that it's been tried, since it's a stupid idea.
The amount of people that don't understand how important a news propagator like Google is is mind-blowing. Access to information is a right. This beats this right down to a pulp.
"HURR DURR GOOGLE BAD HUE HUE GOOD RIDDANCE HUE HUE I'M LE INTELLECTUAL"
Really sad. This fucked every news org. Hard. Except the big ones that own everything.
Why should Google have control over the propagation of news? Everyone can still go to the individual news organisations' website...yes Google consolidated everything into one portal, but maybe it's time to go back to something less centralised, which isn't under the control of a single corporate entity, i.e. the way the web was originally intended to work.
They will eventually pay. This is similar to Australia.
The world wide web was meant to be more than a few tech bros with their tentacles on everything pulling it all towards a central point that is themselves. They're fighting for their monopoly here more than anything else. It's time for them to quit stifling innovation so the internet can evolve again.
At the same time, the news industry has to be more than just Postmedia, BCE, Torstar and Rogers.
The issue is their domination of the online advertising space, not that they "steal" content from the news sources. Yes, they do get headlines, but then they direct people back to that media site to read the content. The real issue is that the ads on the social media post direct revenue to Meta/Google. The ads on the news media site send revenue to Meta/Google. They control the ads market on the buy side (people wanting to advertise) and the sell side (people wanting to show ads), and the exchanges between the two.
The big tech companies paying the big media companies for links is not the solution. It's a stupid idea and has failed everywhere it has been tried. The real solution is to break up the ads monopolies.
You mean I won't get
adsnews from Google anymore? Aww, shucks!Use DuckDuckGo #BoycottGoogle
Greedy google doing greedy google things.
Section 6 of the bill reads as follows: "This Act applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to the following factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses:
(a) the size of the intermediary or the operator; (b) whether the market for the intermediary gives the operator a strategic advantage over news businesses; and (c) whether the intermediary occupies a prominent market position."I don't think anyone could reasonably define lemmy.ca as a powerful news intermediary.
What strategic advantage does Lemmy have? It's open source ffs
I, for one, welcome this opportunity to spend more time on my local papers' websites.
I'm not sure what they expected. An EU country (I can't remember if it was Spain or Italy) tried this and Google just left. Then the news outlets begged for the law to be repealed. Google has a monopoly on search. If people can't find you there, you're gonna have a bad time because of your traffic free fall.
Australia with the kangaroos. Not Austria with the sound of music.
There are other search engines, and bing became a lot better with the gpt integration
OH NO!
Anyway...
It's a joke that Google calls this drivel news anyway. Good riddance.
The worst thing about Google to me is their grab on Android. Yes granted many software companies will not divulge the coding behind their apps but still. No way should Google have that much monopoly on an OS. You would think we would have learned our lesson with Microsoft but apparently not. I have de-google my life as much as possible and am starting to realize just how big Google Android ecosystem is. So...all that to say that yes...every thing that Google loses I'm all for it.
Apple enters the walled garden chat…
The core of Android is actually open source...if you install an aftermarket Android ROM like Lineage OS, you can avoid the closed source Google components (for the most part).
Graphene OS is amazing, if you're degoogled. Terrible if you need Google, though.
I tried it and loved it until I tried to get my work Google account working, lol.
LineageOS is a good option if you still need Google on your phone since you can install GApps.
Yes however...if you don't have the Google Services you're sol. And I do have LineageOS w/MicroG. I did have to de-google that as well but it wasn't too bad. I also have Ubuntu Touch on a second phone which is awesome...limited but awesome.
But how will I find my Russian bot news websites now?! How dare they make me use a legitimate news source instead of finding whatever random “news” website spouted the same nonsense I search in google. /s
I think this will be a good thing in the long run to be honest
I use TOR.
Oh? You are a pirate? Or maybe a journalist in an authoritarian country perhaps?
Nah, I use it to read the news.
am I understanding it correctly that if I'm in Canada and search for, say ArsTechnica, or other news source, Google will not show those results to me? Like they indexed the site and will omit it from a search?
Or are they pulling news in their "cards" or whatever they call them when they show previews and users never enter the site. Havent used Google Search in so long don't even know what shenanigans they are up to.
As I understand it, they are pulling all links to Canadian news sources from search and from their cards, Google News, etc. So if you search for Canadian news you will not find it, unless international news organizations report it, and neither will you find world news reported by Canadian news channels and newspapers.
It might still be possible to use Google to search for Canadian news if you use a VPN and pretend to be in another country, especially if you do it from a browser that's not logged in to your account.
I'm having a hard time believing that is the case for "search." Cards and "google news" is another story.
As much as I dislike Google's practices, they are doing a service by indexing where websites are and allowing them to be found based on keywords.
I feel if I go to "google.com" and search for <some Canadian news site> Google should show me links to <some Canadian news site> so that I can visit the site directly. Any law that retards that is shooting Canadian news outlets in the foot.
Now if Google somehow finds what you're looking for and does not take me directly to the website and instead parses the site, presents the content, and shows its own ads, as opposed to ads hosted on <some Canadian news site>, then yeah - google can go play in traffic.
As annoying as this is, I hope it will push news outlets to consider other funding models. Getting subscribers to pay for journalism seems much healthier than subsisting on ad clicks.
The Globe kinda does this with their soft paywall. The ex-Irving papers in NB seemed to do pretty well with their hard paywall.
They're all trying to get people to pay for journalism, but not enough people are paying.
CTV News doesn't provide membership/subscription options. Many newspapers don't even have a soft paywall.
This a calculated move, but on the part of the Federal government, not google. It's not about CanCon or newspapers and news sites/networks being paid for their linked content, it's about slowly eliminating access to information that the federal government doesn't control
That's nonsense. You think the federal government want people to be getting their information from Twitter and Facebook?
This was a case of bad legislation pushed by short-sighted lobbyists. That's it.
Right. There's no grand convoy conspiracy here. Just out of touch politicians legislating stuff they don't understand.
It's more about eliminating access to information controlled by foreign governments, if anything