Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has criticised Google for its experiment blocking a number of Australian news sites from its search results, as the government edges closer to passing the news media bargaining code.
Earlier this week, Google confirmed it has been hiding a number of local media outlets from some users to measure the impact between news outlets and the platform.
"We’re currently running a few experiments that will each reach about 1% of Google search users in Australia to measure the impacts of news businesses and Google search on each other," a Google spokesman told Nine’s Australian Financial Review.
Google added that the experiments will finish by early February.
The final legislation for the code is facing a Senate committee before being taken to a vote in parliament early this year.
Both Google and Facebook have criticised the code, with Google taking particular issue with its use of final-offer arbitration. Google AUNZ boss Mel Silva said forcing Google to pay publishers to show their links in its search engine is “setting the groundwork to unravel the key principles of the open internet”.
Following Google’s confirmation of its experiment, Frydenberg criticised the move, saying the tech giants should instead be focusing on paying for news content.
“Google, Facebook, other digital giants, should focus not on blocking users in Australia accessing domestic content, they should focus on paying for it,” Frydenberg said to the media.
“The digital giants should focus on paying for original content, not blocking it. That’s my message to those digital giants, and, as you know, we have again introduced legislation that’s now before a Senate committee, to put in place a world-leading mandatory code, to see those digital giants pay traditional new media businesses a fair sum of money for those news media businesses generating original content. That is a world-leading scheme that we are putting in place.
“It has been acknowledged not just by regulatory agencies but by other governments around the world. It’s going to have a final arbitration model in place and it’s going to be a very significant advance for our domestic media businesses.”
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