Re: Right to Link vs proposed Australian “link fee” legislation

It’s obvious on the face of it that this is profoundly hostile to the way
the Web is supposed to work.

Just in case it's not obvious, a few words on why this is happening.

In a sane world, places like Google and Facebook would publish links to
whatever out there on the Web, sell advertising beside those links, and
then the linked-to parties would sell advertising on the destination
resources, and everyone would be happy.  De facto, what's happening is that
Google and Facebook are getting more or less all the money and the
newspapers and so on are getting more or less none.  Thus the collapse in
the publishing industry and, increasingly, more and more locations having
no access to quality local journalism.  Thus the publishers are clutching
at straws, this being one of them.

One response is for publications to pivot to the subscription model but
unfortunately, for most publications it's too late; subscription fatigue
has set in and people are increasingly unwilling to give more parties
monthly access to their bank account.

Now, as to *why* Google and Facebook are getting all the money, this gets
deep into politics and antitrust policy and regulation of the advertising
market very quickly. I have strong opinions about it but I'm not sure
whether that discussion belongs here. Having said that, Data Lords: The
Real Story of Big Data, Facebook and the Future of News
<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/data-lords-the-real-story-of-big-data-facebook-and-the-future-of-news>
from
2018 is an article that really influenced my understanding of the dilemma
that the publishing industry is facing.



On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 9:38 AM Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org> wrote:

> Has anyone noticed this call
>
> https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-media-bargaining-code
> from the Australian government for comments on a plan to force Google and
> Facebook to pay money to news media businesses for content they display on
> their services?  This is a final call of a proposal whose first versions
> came out in July.
>
> The web architecture issue here seems to be the right to link. The code,
> if it became law, would force Google search and Facebook Newsfeed
> [specifically]  to pay a fee to the owner of the destination content (news
> publisher) when the link is displayed, not even necessarily followed.
>
> The architecture of the WWW generally involves the right to link to
> something with impunity -- is this proposal in direct with that right?
>
> What do folks, and the TAG, think?
>
> Tim
>
>
>
>