Google threatened on Friday to block access to its search engine if the Australian government moved forward with a bill that would force it and Facebook to pay other companies for the right to use their content.
Australia’s Parliament introduced a “world-first” bill in December 2020 that would force the two tech giants to negotiate with news outlets to determine “fair” payments for featuring their work on Google’s and Facebook’s services. If negotiations are unsuccessful, a government-appointed arbitrator would determine a price.
Google has expressed staunch opposition to the bill, warning that it would “dramatically” worsen its services in Australia in an advertising campaign. It argues that the code is not clearly defined and makes even limited search tools “too risky.”
Speaking to an Australian Senate committee, Mel Silva, managing director for Google Australia and New Zealand, said Friday that the “operational risk” incurred by the legislature would give Google and its parent company Alphabet “no real choice” but to suspend operations.
“Coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk if this version of the Code were to become law, it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia,” Silva said.
Alphabet previously warned that access to both Google Search and YouTube would be threatened under the bill, but Silva’s comments to the Senate did not include any reference to the video-streaming platform. The most recent version of the bill is expected to include an exemption for YouTube.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters afterward that the country would not heed Google’s “threats.”
“People who want to work with that in Australia, you’re very welcome. But we don’t respond to threats,” Morrison said, adding that the country will make its own rules for “things you can do in Australia.”
In the waning days of the Trump administration, the U.S. government asked Australia to “suspend” its plans to pass the new bill and asked that the country “further study the markets, and if appropriate, develop a voluntary code.”
“The U.S. Government is concerned that an attempt, through legislation, to regulate the competitive positions of specific players … to the clear detriment of two U.S. firms, may result in harmful outcomes,” trade representatives Daniel Bahar and Karl Ehlers wrote, warning that the proposed law might “raise concerns with respect to Australia’s international trade obligations.”
