Google’s Ominous Warning to Australians: ‘The Way Aussies Use Google Is at Risk’

Tech giant Google has been engaged in a long battle with Australia’s news publishers, now Google is attempting to appeal directly to the Australian public, ominously warning them that the way they use the services of the Masters of the Universe is “at risk.”

Gizmodo reports that in the latest escalation in a long battle between Facebook, Google, and Australian news publishers, Google is attempting to appeal directly to the Australian public. Google published an open letter this week from the firms’ ANZ Director Mel Silva about the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)’s draft news media bargaining code.

In an attempt to direct people towards the letter, Google added a line to its main search page which warns: “The way Aussie search every day on Google is at risk from new Government regulation,” alongside a bright yellow hazard sign. If users failed to see that, a pop-up prompt appears during a search which reads: “The way Aussies use Google is at risk, your search experience will be hurt by new regulation.”

The ACCC — Australia’s consumer watchdog — investigated Google for over a year and a half and published a report last year that claims that digital platforms such as Google and Facebook have significant bargaining powers. By comparison, news publishers are a lot less powerful leading to an imbalance that had a significant adverse effect on the average consumer, according to the ACCC.

In April 2020, the Australian government asked the ACCC to develop a set of rules for negotiations between news publishers and tech platforms to level the playing field. In July, a draft ‘code of conduct was released. Google vehemently opposed the code while Facebook declined to comment entirely.

In the recently published open letter, Google’s Silva claims that the code places free services such as Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube “at risk,” implying that the services may be discontinued or have a fee for use if the draft goes through.

“A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you use at risk in Australia,” she wrote.

A similar post was published by YouTube’s head of APAC, Guatam Anand, to the Google Australia blog addressing Australia’s YouTube creators. It appears that Google is now attempting to appeal directly to the public to place pressure on the government. Breitbart News will continue to report on this issue as new developments take place.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com