- From: Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>
- Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 21:23:07 +1100
- To: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
- Cc: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>, Public TAG List <www-tag@w3.org>, Wendy Seltzer <wseltzer@w3.org>, Jonathan Zittrain <zittrain@law.harvard.edu>, Daniel Weitzner <weitzner@mit.edu>, Davi Ottenheimer <davi@inrupt.com>, schneier Bruce <schneier@inrupt.com>
Hey Tim! > On 17 Jan 2021, at 6:14 am, Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote: > > It’s obvious on the face of it that this is profoundly hostile to the way the Web is supposed to work. I think that 'the way that the Web is supposed to work' isn't terribly interesting to competition regulators. That said, I agree that letting anyone link to anyone else is an important feature of the Web, and it helped to bootstrap and maintain the connectivity that it thrives upon. If this were taken as a precedent that anyone linking to anyone else should have to pay for the privilege, the Web would be a much poorer place.* However, we can't ignore that the Web also favours creating massively centralised systems where network effects and other advantages (especially data) accrue to only a few. This is an attempt to counterbalance that effect in one market. It might be clumsy or even ill-conceived, but I don't think that the Web's architecture has primacy here. If anything, I'd push back on grounds of an imbalance between the interests of news publishers and freedom of expression -- even taking into account the societal goals of a healthy news ecosystem. Invoking an obligation to bargain upon mere linking isn't reasonable, if it's just a link with (for example) the title of the page as the link text. Using more content or interaction with the link seems more reasonable as a basis of an obligation to me. Failing that, maybe we should come up with technical solutions to the centralisation of identity, data and network effects currently on the Web, so that we can regulate them architecturally, rather than legally. > 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. More or less, yes. I believe the view is that because the platforms have dominance not only in their own markets, but leverage into others (such as obtaining news content for purposes of driving that on-platform advertising you mention), and the news platforms are in such a disadvantageous position, the imbalance in bargaining power needs to be corrected, especially since a healthy news ecosystem is so important to democracy. This isn't unique to news and digital platforms; the ACCC is doing much the same thing for an imbalance of bargaining power in the perishable agricultural goods market. Cheers, * This legislation is much more limited; it creates an obligation for designated digital platforms to enter into negotiation with registered news publishers upon request; the outcome of that negotiation might be payment, or not (subject to arbitration). -- Mark Nottingham https://www.mnot.net/
Received on Sunday, 17 January 2021 10:23:29 UTC