<
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210302/17264946349/microsoft-attacks-open-web-because-jealous-googles-success.shtml>
"Lots of attention has been paid to the mess down in Australia with its news
link tax "bargaining code", and Facebook's response to it, including the
eventual caving. So now both Google and Facebook have effectively agree to pay
a tax to Australia's largest media companies... for daring to send them free
traffic. It's the most bizarre thing in the world. Imagine if every time TV
stations ran an advertisement, they also had to pay the advertiser. That's what
this is.
However, we should focus in a bit on Microsoft's role in all of this. First,
before Google agreed to its deal and was threatening to shut down news links in
Australia, Microsoft stepped in and said it would gladly support the law. This
was so transparently greedy of the company. Basically, Microsoft has realized
that it's failure to actually be able to compete in the marketplace means that
it wants to support this kind of law knowing that one of two things will
happen: (1) Google will bail out of a market, leaving it open to Microsoft or
(2) it'll just cost its competitor Google a lot of money.
The fact that it also fucks with the basic concept of the open web and not
having to pay to link doesn't seem to enter into Microsoft's calculus at all.
This takes Microsoft back to the shameful era in which it paid some godawful
amount of money to political trickster Mark Penn not to help Microsoft better
compete, but to simply attack Google like a political candidate. This is
classic political entrepreneurship rather than market entrepreneurship. It's a
sign of failure, when you're not trying to actually innovate, but simply
abusing the political process to hamstring competitors.
But, in this case, it's even worse, because it's not just Google and Facebook
that get screwed, but the entire concept of the open web.
And it gets worse. Microsoft seems so positively giddy about how this all
worked out in Australia, that it's now taken the campaign global. Microsoft's
President, Brad Smith wrote a blog post calling for this policy to be adopted
elsewhere. Incredibly, Smith seems to argue that the attack on the Capitol
might not have happened if Google and Facebook were taxed this way globally.
The whole thing is just... so obnoxiously dishonest. It bemoans the loss of
"professional journalism" and blames it all on social media.
But that's garbage. Multiple studies have shown that Fox News was a bigger
problem in spreading disinformation than social media. And, remember, that Fox
News boss Rupert Murdoch is the main beneficiary of the Australian law. It's
literally taking money from the less problematic spreader of disinfo and giving
it to the more problematic one."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
