News media bargaining code: Where Google and publishers’ ideas of the audience collide

By Nikhila Natarajan New York, Nov 24 : Google VP and chief evangelist Vint Cerf’s November 23 blog against the idea of Google paying news businesses is built on three pillars: Search intent, the migration of ad dollars away from news media and the technologist’s idea of the audience as distinct from a publisher’s.
The first two are well worn narratives, the third is in the game changer category, and relatively less explored in the annals of algorithmic mediation. Google has annual revenues exceeding $160 billion, its market value is beyond $1 trillion; news businesses which feed this beast are in peak meltdown.
Cerf’s blog pertains to an ongoing debate over Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code where the country’s news publishers are pushing Google and Facebook to pay for content on their platforms. Like the coronavirus (and the internet), this too is an everywhere story. It applies to any geography where the audience has dispersed from the public square.
Google’s response here and elsewhere points to the core of its defence, it also frames the challenge for publishers in their quest for audience acquisition and retention: “The bigger point is that people don’t use Google because they have to, they use it because they choose to,” Google responded when the USA vs Google antitrust case dropped in October.
Cerf writes in his blog, “The truth is that news content makes up a tiny proportion of the things people search for online (1 per cent, in Australia). People’s searches reflect the priorities in their lives. Even if Google disappeared overnight, Australians would still need to use the internet to find a job, car, restaurant or plumber; to learn a language or get a red wine stain out of the carpet.” Consumer pain points are hardly a new construct. Nor is Cerf’s explanation of how ad dollars have gone bye bye: “The reason news businesses are making less revenue is not because Google exists. It is because in a much more open and diverse digital market, news businesses began to face competition from websites that have taken classified advertising online, including Australian platforms like Seek and Domain.”