Why Google threatens to pull out of Australia? | Consequences
Why Google threatens to pull out of Australia? | Consequences
On 16th November 2020, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan empowered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. According to the rules under Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA) Section 37, PTA will have the authority to censor any data on digital platforms that poses any threat to the sanctity, integrity, and defense of the government. With this reform, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other tech-giants threatened Pakistan to leave the country. Thus, posing serious concerns over opportunities for a digital marketing agency.
The main agenda highlighted by the companies was freedom of expression. Now, again Google threatens Australia upon its new law enforcement.
According to this new law, the tech-giants will have to pay the local news bodies to link to their platform. This law’s main reason was the sheer loss to the National media companies with the increasing trend of digital marketing. Hence, the Australian authorities approved a bill that implies that these digital platforms must pay the newsrooms for their journalism. In response to this, the managing director of Google Australia states that the legislation is quite unworkable. Moreover, with other tech-giants, Facebook and Google threatens to restrict their country’s search engine access.
Australia does not count among the large user markets of Google search engine and Facebook. However, about 19 billion users use Google as a daily necessity and about 16 billion monthly active users of Facebook. Besides, Google is the most used search engine in the country. In response to Google’s threats, the Prime Minister of Australia states that “We don’t take threats.” If Google pulls out, it will devoid such a large number of its services, especially the internet marketing services.
According to recent news, Microsoft has reached out to the Australian government, offering improvements with its search engine, Bing. Furthermore, as Google threatens, Microsoft, the potential competitor, promises to get on board with Australia.
In a skirmish to make the tech-giants pay for what they benefit from the news platforms and Australian journalism, the consequences are not clear yet. However, it is expected that if these digital platforms make it to a common ground with the ground, there may be some amendments in the code.
