For most Aussies, Google is synonymous with the internet. It is where we search most of the news and just about anything else. However, last Friday, Google warned Australian lawmakers that they might pull out Google Search in the country if they go ahead and pass the newly-proposed digital media law.
If Google leaves Australia, what does that mean for you? We’re taking a look at what’s most likely the outcome if this happens.
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Transcription:
Today we’re talking about whether or not Google might actually leave Australia. And this is, you know, pretty damn scary that it’s been in the news recently, that there is a potential for Google to change their business strategy in Australia, for anyone who’s not yet familiar with it genius. So who we are what we do, we are really passionate about helping small business owners play a bigger game. And that means more flexibility, more time freedom, and making more money in your business. Now, our focus is technology, we’re all about helping you get the right technology strategy in place, so that it will be a great foundation for building a really great business. But for us, we’re really all about helping small business owners, you know, build a bit of business have happier teams. And we think that is our way that we can help improve and serve the world. So we’ve got quite a large team ourselves, we’ve grown and ballooned our team through, you know, international resourcing and through good technology strategy internally, and through serving our customers well, and we now like to share that with the rest of the world and share that with you guys. Now, we take businesses through our growth roadmap, which is basically the different stages of technology strategy, and different stages of technology adoption, as you go through different stages of business. And so having worked with 1000s, and 1000s of business owners, we know kind of what hurdles you’ve come up against at different stages of business. So like, if you’re just getting started, the kind of things you need to make sure you get right are getting your file sharing done getting some task management, so you can delegate tasks to other team members, when you’re in growth mode, and you’ve got like more than five, six employees and the businesses kind of, you know, proven the business model, but you’re starting to kind of like shoot up into growing up as a business, you want to make sure that you’ve got good technology systems, they’re going to support your business processes. So things like a CRM system for your sales process management, or something like copper CRM, which we implement and resell. And then when once your scale business, you’ve got more than 20 employees. And that’s really the ultimate goal for us to graduate you to a scale business. At that point, it’s really things like KPIs, building out your dashboards, building out it policies inside the business, and making sure that your business has everything it needs to continue to be successful as you grow and change throughout the business. So let’s talk about potential for Google to exit Australia and the threats that have been going around in the Australian media at the moment, because it’s a Yeah, pretty wild. And, you know, pretty scary thing, especially when our whole business is, is run on Google. And we use Google every day. And many of us as consumers, obviously use Google all the time as well. Why would Google threaten something like actually leaving us Australia must be pretty serious, right? Well, it is. And it’s called the news media bargaining code. And this is one of the first in the world and there is a similar one in in European in France, I think it is, which Google have been able to reach agreements with news publishers, and have that basically settled with that. But the Australian one is, is effectively something that says that when news organizations are publishing content, they want to be compensated for that. And they want to be compensated for that for the kind of content that appears in Google’s search results. So inside Google search results, Google will highlight news stories. And basically, Google works by crawling the web and finding all the web pages on the web and news sites to some of those web pages. And Google displays them in their search results. And basically, what the media agencies are arguing is they’re saying, well, we want to be compensated for for our valuable content that is attracting your users. And so if users are on your platform, on Google search, we want to be compensated for the traffic that is actually going to our sites because we’re not just giving value to the users by reading the news website, we’re giving value to Google, by actually having users go to Google to get their news. Now, it’s very interesting. And I’m going to dig deep into kind of like what the different arguments are different sides of this, because I’ve done some research on it. But that’s effectively what is coming into place. And Google is saying they don’t like the terms of the law, as it is currently proposed. And if it is implemented, as proposed, they will be withdrawing Google search from Australia, they say they’re saying they would have to withdraw Google search from Australia. Now Facebook are actually in the same situation. And they’ve not said that they’re going to switch off Facebook for Australia, but that they may limit some new search results or content on the Facebook platform, which is also pretty interesting. But I’m going to cover the Google story as much as possible. So let’s try and understand both sides of the argument here. I think the most important thing for you to understand in all of this is that when we use a platform for free, and by this I mean Gmail for free, or Google search for free, or we’re going to use the example of Facebook as well. You are actually not the customer, you are the product. And this has been kind of thrown around a bit in the last couple of years. And what that basically means is when you’re using something for free, your data and the value of your data to advertisers is actually the product So you’re not really using a service like in a way you are the service, you’re the value that’s being created. And capturing that value is what these news organizations are using as their central argument. They’re saying that we’re basically contributing to that value creation that’s happening in the the user of Google search, you’re actually using the product. And so they’re basically saying, We want a piece of that pie. That’s pretty much what they’re saying. And so these newsmakers Yes, they’re certainly, you know, they’re certainly valuable in the news that they are creating their businesses are certainly changing. And I’m going to cover some more of that. And and that’s certainly a fair point. But there is a little bit of a problem with that. There’s a bit of a problem with that. And the problem with the argument of like, Hey, we just want a piece of that pie is that basically, Google have built this business and Facebook have built this business as a valuable place for us as users to actually use, that doesn’t necessarily mean that automatically, news publishers get a piece of that, and their business has been changing. We’re going to cover that in a moment. You know, why, why that’s actually been happening. But the the problem with how this code has been structured right now, is that if it was implemented, the way it is that Google has to start paying someone for the links that they send, literally,and I’m going to use the line here of the Google Australia, leader, Mel Silva, it would literally break the way that the intimate internet works, because links are free. And the moment that you say, Okay, well, someone has to pay a fee for that link, or pay a fee for that traffic on that link. It basically, I mean, it completely breaks the model of a search engine, which is showing you how to find things on the internet. But also, it sets a bit of a dangerous precedent. And the dangerous precedent is that someone might say, Well, you know, any other website that is receiving traffic from Google should also be compensated for that. Now, it’s a bit like saying that I create videos on YouTube, I put out videos on YouTube. Therefore, I should get paid by Google for that content, aside from the money that I make promoting our services, in those videos that I make on YouTube. Now, interestingly, Google actually do have a partner program, if you have enough views and subscribers on YouTube, you can actually start getting paid for your content. And that’s a partnership between content creators, and between Google. And that’s basically what Google have proposed for news organizations. And I’ll cover a little bit more about that in a second. Anyway, Google have in response to what has been proposed, they’ve put up a public letter. And there’s a video from Mel Silva, who’s the director for Google Australia, you know, basically addressing this. And I think they did a pretty good job of addressing why this is important. And they’ve got, you know, like an open, open letter there and those kind of things, giving you a bit of an idea of what Google’s of what Google’s kind of position is there. But it doesn’t quite cover the full story. And so we’re going to go a little bit deeper into it. I want to talk about well, why is this become a problem now? Like, why has this turned into a problem now, and effectively, one of the biggest issues that’s actually happened recently, is that the landscape of digital publishers has changed. And so you’ve got newspapers and news publishers who previously got most of their revenue from classifieds, and a lot of that classifieds revenue has dropped off. And I think it’s something like it went from four and a half billion dollars a year in Australia, down to $3 billion a year, which is a pretty big drop, and that’s over the past five or 10 years. And so this transition to, you know, more digital commerce, the argument of, or the the presupposition of the US publishers is that, well, Google’s getting all of that revenue. But that’s not actually the full story. It’s not quite the case, a lot of the revenue that was previously going to classifieds inside newspapers, and now actually going to seek.com, or car sales.com. And these other websites, which are now actually selling things online, and I would say probably Gumtree, eBay, Facebook marketplace, those kind of apps are where a lot of commerce is going, rather than classifieds. And advertising is obviously switching to online as well. So very different plays to what was previously happening in the newspapers. Now, is that Google’s fault? No, not necessarily. That’s just, in my opinion, a change in dynamics in a market. And that’s capitalism. And Google has just showed up to fill in a hole that has been created. So is that like Google coming in and doing a bad thing? And like stealing the revenue of these publishers? No, not necessarily. However, we cannot deny that the business model of these publishers is changing. And they have a fair argument that quality journalism and actually sharing important news has value and if there is value being created inside the Google platform or inside the Facebook platform in the form of the analytics and the data on the users that is, in part being supported by the news organizations. Well, you know, they’ve got a fair point that, you know, potentially there should be some compensation. So Google basically want to get data on the users and Google are using data and analytics from users behaviors for advertising. But interestingly, Google don’t use much data on the news interests of people for advertising, Google get most of their revenue from advertising, when someone searches for something like and this is on the Google open letter, when someone searches for I want to find some running shoes, right? That’s where they get most of their value. Now, yes, it’s valuable for someone to go to Google for everything. But I think it’s a bit of a tall order for the newspapers to say, well, just because you get data on users, we want a piece of that value creation. So Google’s solution is something called Google News showcase, which is what they have started rolling out in parts of Europe, not yet available in Australia. But basically, they’ve committed to making it available in Australia, if they can negotiate with the, you know, policymakers for this to be a fair system. And this is effectively, I would say, in a way similar to the idea of the YouTube creator contributor program, where the creators will actually be paid for their content. And so what that means is there is a way for value exchange to happen to publishers. So that’s basically what Google are proposing. And what they’re saying is that this needs to be negotiated before we just slap in the law as it’s being proposed currently, because that may have some issues with how it’s currently interpreted. So what does that mean for you? And is there any actual risk to your business? What most people are worrying about is, you know, is there going to be a change to Google workspace? Or is something going to change with the way that I use Google day to day? Well, for now, I think the most important thing to know is that the government are starting to bring these tech companies into check, they’ve already gone after them for taxation. And, you know, being, you know, domiciled overseas and Google are now paying up to $100 million a year in Australian Federal Tax, which is pretty good. That’s good for our economy. The other thing is that in terms of privacy in terms of user protection, and now in terms of, you know, making sure that these organizations are playing fairly with the rest of the market, Google being kept in check by governments, I think that’s a good thing. Overall, I do think that governments should actually be working with these companies to make sure that things work out. But overall, I think it’s a good thing that large tech companies are kept in check to make sure that everything has been done well. Effectively, we want to make sure that there’s a harmonious ecosystem for all of the players. That’s government, that’s people, and that’s the tech businesses as well, who are just participating in our economy. That’s how business works. So is your Google workspace account actually at risk? Is there anything that could happen to your Google workspace account? And could there be any problems there? In my opinion, it’s a hard No, it’s very unlikely that anything would happen with Google workspace. And that’s because Google search is very, very different to Google Cloud and the rest of the Google productivity tools. Google is actually a large company under alphabet, which is what was Google was renamed to. And you can see here that there’s all different areas of the business as Google nest, Google Ventures and Google capital, more on the capital side of things. They’ve got Wei Mo, which of their self driving cars, Google Cloud is just one part of the business. But you can see that Google search is a completely different business unit to Google Cloud. And Google workspace actually falls under Google Cloud. So when Google say, Hey, we’re like getting out of here. In terms of Australia, what that actually means is that Google Search may be restricted in Australia. And that would be pretty interesting to see, like, if we had a Google without search in Australia, it would mean no Google Maps, it would mean no Google My Business, it would mean that we wouldn’t get the normal search results. And I don’t really want to have to use Bing, I don’t want to have to resort to using being so I really hope that they can work things out. And if you’re interested in in putting in submissions, I don’t think they’re taking submissions from the public. But organizations are certainly able to put in submissions. And for me, it’s just kind of like Fingers crossed at the moment, I’m sure that they’re gonna find a way to work it out. But I am appreciating the public discourse in this because I think it raises a great conversation for what is the, you know, value of journalism, and also for everyone to just be mindful that, you know, when we’re using a product like Google search for free, the data that that’s actually utilizing from us is the product and that is the value that’s being created. And we are effectively exchanging value with these tools, every time that we’re connecting with that tool and connected with that service.
Now, if you’re a business owner, and you’re a current user of Google workspace, or you’re curious to check out the Google workspace platform, you may be wondering how we can help well it genius is a consulting company, and we help small and medium-sized businesses all over the world with their technology to make sure that you have things in the right place. As I shared earlier, we take you through the growth roadmap. No matter where you are in business, we make sure that your focus on the right technology strategy, so that you’re not getting things wrong at the start of your business or wasting time or money on things that you don’t need. And as your business grows, we make sure that you don’t run into any of the pitfalls that are most common with growing businesses. We’ve literally helped 1000s of small business owners grow and scale their businesses. And so we intimately know what is successful, and what is unsuccessful in your tech strategy. And we know a little bit about business strategy as well. But we’re all about helping you grow and be successful, and making sure that the right tech is along the journey with you as you go along. So if you’re already a Google workspace customer, and you’re not working with it, genius, you can transfer your licenses into us. What that means is your billing goes through it genius, it does not cost you any more. But you get a whole heap of goodies. We’ve got some classrooms that we’ve got set up with free courses for Google workspace to get your team trained and get you up to speed on all the latest best practices, you get a few free services from our concierge team, you get access to our chat support as well, which is pretty cool. And then when we have promotions for Google workspace and discounts that are not available to the public, you’re able to actually get access to that, if you’re interested in that head along to it genius.com, forward slash transfer, and you can transfer your billing to us fill out a form, it’s super simple, and you get access to all of that, you’ll also get a free consultation from our team. If you are a Google workspace customer, or you’re not yet a Google workspace customer, and you’re interested in us taking you through our growth roadmap, jump on a call with our team completely complimentary, no obligation to proceed, no hard sells, we’re just going to give you as much value as possible and say, oh, I’ve got Google picking me up in the background, we’re just going to give you as much value as possible in that 20 minutes to see if we might be a good fit to help out your business. If not, that’s totally fine, we may point you in another direction with someone else that we can help. Now if you’re interested in that jump along on it genius.com forward slash console, we’ll take you through the growth roadmap. And we’ll help you guys out with anything that we can do to support you. So here we have a picture of our Google Classroom. And this actually shows some of the things that you get access to when you are a customer of itGenius. And so if you’ve not yet already got access to the classroom, and you are a customer on this call, I just had that same note. And we’ll be happy to make sure you have access. But we’ve got heaps of training and lessons in there for you and your team, basically on the fundamentals of working remotely, setting up Google workspace correctly. And if you’ve got any new employees, and they’ve just started with you, and maybe they’ve come from Outlook, but you want to train them on how to use Gmail and how to find their way around workspace, this classroom is the perfect place to train them up. Make this part of your induction, so you don’t have to bother teaching them how to use workspace but ask teach your team how to use workspace so you don’t have to do it yourself. If you’re interested head along to it genius.com. You can see full size transfer if you want to transfer your licenses jump on a console that’s free for absolutely everyone. Or if you have any other questions or you’re not sure where to go, then just jump on the chat and you can chat with our team straightaway they are they’re waiting to take your message and help out as much as possible. And until next time. Catch you guys soon. See you later.
