Notes

In response to a proposed legislation that would require Facebook to negotiate payment for the inclusion of news content from Australian publishers Facebook has now blocked its users from linking Australian news sites.

That ban also seems to go the other way around:

Posts by news publishers outside of Australia won’t be available to Australian users.

Facebook isn’t alone in its battle with the Australian legislation. Google is facing similar problems. This article by ArsTechnica from January has some more details that might give some additional context here:

So last year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission proposed a new mandatory arbitration process designed to correct a supposed power imbalance between tech giants and Australian news sites. Under the new framework, news sites can demand that tech platforms (initially Google and Facebook) pay them for linking to their stories. Google and Facebook are required to negotiate “in good faith” toward a payment agreement.

You might think that Google would simply stop linking to Australian news sites. But that won’t be allowed under the ACCC proposal. New non-discrimination rules require Google to treat sites the same whether or not it has to pay to link to them.

This all just sounds so messed up…

A couple of months ago the Austrian Economic Chamber in cooperation with the Austrian government launched a portal that what supposed to make it easier for everyone to find regional stores. Turns out, the offered functionality wasn’t what people wanted and its costs didn’t help popular opinion either.

Now, it’s unclear if and in what form the platform will be continued. I guess that’s € 600K well spent…