IN THE WORLD TODAY

Tech giants stuck in news stand-off

GOOGLE has threatened to make its search engine unavailable in Australia if the government goes ahead with plans to make tech giants pay for news content.

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison quickly hit back, saying “we don’t respond to threats”.

Morrison’s comments came after Mel Silva, the managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, told a Senate inquiry into the bill the new rules would be unworkable.

The mandatory code of conduct proposed by the government aims to make Google and Facebook pay Australian media companies fairly for using news content they siphon from news sites.

Silva said: “If this version of the code were to become law it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google search available in Australia.

“And that would be a bad outcome not only for us, but also for the Australian people, media diversity and the small businesses who use our products every day.”

Silva said it was willing to pay a wide and diverse group of news publishers for the value they added but not under the rules as proposed, which included payments for links and snippets.

Facebook also opposes the rules and has threatened to remove news stories from its site in Australia.

Like in many other countries, Google dominates internet searches in Australia, with Silva telling senators about 95% of searches in the nation are done through the company.

The Australia Institute, an independent think tank, said politicians should stand firm against Google’s bullying.