Last week, Australian news channels were in unison reporting one specific news in the same tone. Although the flashy words they used were different, the root of the news was deep into uncovering the cold war between the Australian government and ‘Google’ which erupted very recently.
“Google threatened to withdraw search engine from Australia”, reported BBC. “Google is threatening to pull its search engine from Australia. So what does that mean for you?”, reported ABC. “Google threatens to shut down the search in Australia if digital news code goes ahead”, reported ‘the guardian’.
Why? If you were asking the question, the answer is simple. The Australian government wanted Google to pay for the news feeds Google gets from local content publishers. The local news agencies should get money from Google instead of Google using the news contents free (and increasing the money they get from ads).
Should they? I was thinking. Why should Google do what the government is proposing? Well, let’s see what happens behind the scenes.
Imagine Sally, a news reporter for the local news channel. As a reporter she is getting paid for the contents she is providing, and normally they have a daily quota. At least 5 news per week (this may change based on the medium and the channel). So probably Sally has to cover a territory either a state or a metropolitan area.
Hence, she drives around, sees what is probably a piece of news. So, she may visit a hospital during the pandemic putting her life at risk and find the news about a dying COVID-19 patient in isolation. She talked to the patient and the family ( She is emotionally drained because of the heartbreaking story), and then write the story very quickly, edit it, proofread it all alone, and then report it back to the news channel for them to get it curated into the seven o’clock main news bulleting. And then she is off to report a mad driver who crashed into a shopping mall killing two people. After that, she must drive to the areas affected by the floods and talk to the people those who did not get any support so if it comes in the news, somebody will send relief troops to that area. Now the news about the isolated COVID-19 patient is live on the web and the TV. Google ‘search engine’ go and extract the feed and ranked it top in the Google engine.
Since it is in Google search engine now, if someone like you, searches for COVID-19 in Australia then the news comes up in Google which had been reported by Sally. While you read the news, Google displays a pharmaceutical ad by some company and boom! Google gets a few dollars because the reader clicked the ad. What about Sally? Oh, Sally almost drowned in the floods, but she still pulled that off and writing the story to send to the news to be published at 10 o’clock news (and probably she will not get paid if another news channel reported it before her (oh poor Sally) )
Now, the government proposed that Google probably should think about paying the news channels, local news publishers who produced the news contents Google list in their news feeds. But what was Google’s response? A tech talk which should have gone to Ted-Talks.
‘ Well, that is not how a search engines works ‘ Google explained. (It is not that complicated in fact. It is like how someone asks for a coffee shop from someone on the road, simple, got it?) Then Google said, ‘they will pull Google search engine off from Australian market’ if they have to follow that government bill.
I was thinking about it because I am a diehard fan of Google. I respect what Google does, how it does it and sometimes the community support it has provided. Then I saw this video published by Google. (which has the coffee shop example of a search engine).
What I noticed after watching this video was how people reacted to this video and the news.
Majority of the generic public backlashed Google position. My comment included pleading Google to find a middle ground.
Some comments were astonishing. Some say ‘Go Google go, pull it off. It will be a blessing’. Some said ‘ok fine, download DuckDuckGo (I downloaded it and it is nice).
And the next thing I noticed is most of the people who commented bias to the Government position were diehard fans of Google. Few of them I know personally, and they were Google, Android engineers. As IT professionals our living is partially thanks to these platforms.
But there is something called fair business. I guess people are intelligent. They should not be explained how a search engine works. it is like someone is trying to explain how the engine of Malaysian airlines MH370 works. It is maybe relevant to the engineers. But for the generic public, the plain got vanished with the 227 passengers. How the engine works are irrelevant if it cannot trace back and reveal what happened to 227 passengers. That is 227 families who are still going through the trauma after 6 years. If they cannot track it back then yes I guess they should go back to the drawing board.
The position should be ‘if the way how the search engine works harm the local business and community, how to fix that? It is never the question of ‘it is how it was hence it is how it should be’.
Well, for a diehard fan of Google who makes a living out of that and who was very proud of being a Google engineer to say ‘ok Google, go, pull it off. It would be a blessing’ there must be something. I hope Google will think about it.
On the contrast, I did remember 3M. Last year, when COVID-19 pandemic erupts, 3M was in news. 3M (the company I worked for 6 years and still is a diehard, proud advocate of 3M just because of its values and integrity) is the inventor and manufacturer and global distributor of N95 mask. Then-president Trump demanded from 3M that all the N95 supplies should be made available only in the USA. I should not export to other countries. He has been threatening the 3M -CEO ‘Mike Roman’
The response from Mike Roman was one of the most respected and bold response I have ever seen from a CEO. ‘He said, “ We’re more than happy to shift our overseas production to the U.S., but there are going to be consequences on a humanitarian level as we are often the sole provider of those respirators around the world.” He explained this in different channels. 3M manufacture and distribute these marks for almost all counties. Rich and poor, they all depended on it. If they were to shift all the production to the USA, many other counties will suffer. So, he explained it nicely, gracefully and beautifully.
And then what happened, people lined up behind him. 3M employees and those who know 3M, lined up behind him gave and him the support he needed because ‘that was the right thing to do’. It is a clear contrast of how Google reacted (explaining how a search engine works and resembling that to ‘asking the direction for a coffee shop’, hence they are ‘entitled to get free news feeds’).
I think it is an opportunity for Google to think and look at the ecosystem of the problem (rather than explaining how search engines work and then to threaten to pull off Google). If it is a problem, it is a problem. Considering Google is still a kid in the industry (compared to a company like 3M which is 100 years old), it may be a learning opportunity to Google. At the end of the day, the company needs its people to support it. If the people who are working with the company cannot support its cause, then there is a problem. I guess it should be acknowledged and look into it. And if you still remember that news reporter, Sally, I guess she should get a small amount of money from the ad money because whoever who clicked that ad finally was reading the news she reported. I hope we will get that news soon. Google, we love you, but we will love you more when you do the right thing.
References :
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/03/coronavirus-update-3m-ceo-defends-mask-production-after-trump-invokes-dpa.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/03/coronavirus-update-3m-ceo-defends-mask-production-after-trump-invokes-dpa.html
Originally published at http://agilitydna.com on January 30, 2021.
