anome

DAalseth said:

So if the search engine company has to pay the local broadcaster for having their links come up in search results, what's to keep Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and anyone else in the search biz from just excluding those results? You want to know what's happening with, for example, the virus in Sydney? You'll get BBC and CNN results but not RA, Australian Broadcasting Corp,  or any local station.

Interesting thought. Of course, the ABC is a public broadcaster, and not paywalled. I suspect this is more in the interests of, for example, News Corp, who own a lot of the mainstream media in Australia. So will ABC search results be included?

If the ABC is included, and so Google et al have to pay to show their results, this clearly works to the benefit of, for example, New Corp who own non-Australian news outlets as well as their local operation. So if you search for news about Australia, you're just as likely to get an article written for, say, [i]The Australian[/i] but published by, say, [i]The Times[/i]. The local outlet still gets paid for its content, but gets around any boycott from Google avoiding paying the fee.

Basically, this sounds like bad legislation with bad consequences. Some might claim that's a hallmark of the current government, if not of global politics in 2020.

Beats said:

anome said:

This is interesting. I suspect Google, and now Samsung, are looking at the Apple situation as a test case. They're wondering if Epic is successful here, will they go after them next?

But why should they? They allow side-loading, don't they? Do they also block in-app purchases that don't go through Google Play or whatever Samsung's store is called?

Can we sue Epic for not allowing me to buy my Fortnite in-app items from Rockstar or someone? Do they have a monopoly on purchases made in Fortnite?

Epic has a store too. We should sue them for being "anti-consumer" and not allowing 3rd party games to sell there for free.

I've bought games from their store, but most of them only run on PC. I should sue them to make them run on Mac, shouldn't I?

bageljoey said:

I don’t get the monopoly angle. I mean, of course Apple has a monopoly of Apple products, but there are a variety of smartphone platforms to chose from if you don’t like the way Apple sells and regulates theirs. 

That's just the thing, saying "Apple has a monopoly on Apple products" is a nonsensical statement. You might as well say Mitsubishi has a monopoly on Mitsubishi products or something like that.

I might as well sue Epic because the game I bought from them doesn't run on Mac, only PC. I mean, they told me when I bought it that it wouldn't run on a Mac, just like Apple told them when they developed Fortnite for iOS how the in-game purchasing would work, but why should that make any difference?

This is interesting. I suspect Google, and now Samsung, are looking at the Apple situation as a test case. They're wondering if Epic is successful here, will they go after them next?

But why should they? They allow side-loading, don't they? Do they also block in-app purchases that don't go through Google Play or whatever Samsung's store is called?

Can we sue Epic for not allowing me to buy my Fortnite in-app items from Rockstar or someone? Do they have a monopoly on purchases made in Fortnite?

foregoneconclusion said:

I'm going to wait for the Surface Trio. Three blades screens are better than two. 

I'm holding out for the Surface Hexaflexagon.