Google on Friday threatened to shut down its search engine in Australia if officials there pass a law requiring it to pay news outlets for their content.
The Silicon Valley titan escalated his aggressive struggle against the proposal, saying the measure would “break the way Google works” because the company would have to pay to display links to news articles.
“This code creates an unreasonable and unmanageable financial and operational risk to our business,” Google Australia CEO Mel Silva said in an open letter, echoing comments she made to an Australian Senate committee.
“If the code were to become law in its current form, we would have no choice but to no longer make Google Search available in Australia.”
The controversial proposal would allow news companies to negotiate payments from Google and Facebook for the use of their content that appears in search results or news feeds. An arbitrator would set the price if the parties cannot reach a deal.
Google had previously said the measure would “ jeopardize ” its free services – including the search engine and YouTube – in Australia if it became legal. Google now says YouTube in its current form would not be affected by the proposal.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison fired back at Google’s threat to block access to search queries, saying the country has rules on “things you can do in Australia”.
“People who want to work with this in Australia are very welcome. But we don’t respond to threats, ”said Morrison.
Google’s offensive came after US trade representatives Daniel Bahar and Karl Ehlers asked Australia to drop the proposed law, saying it would “clearly come at the expense of two US companies.”
The proposal has widespread political support down under and is backed by publishers such as News Corp., which owns The Post and publishes eight of the top ten newspapers in Australia.
With pole wires