Trust nothing, suspect everything and listen to your gut feelings.
Anybody with faith in Government institutions to protect their interests is delusional.

So, with all the above self defence mechanisms in place, who whould know what the true (and is it trite to use the word "honest") ,intentions of either party are.

One thing is certain though, I'll be the bottom of the pecking order of consideration!

Therefore, this subject will be filed under "who cares".

Dan

Yes. Trust no-one, least of all government and politicians and anyone else telling us how evil Google is. Google is not a sweet potato, but politicians get more sleazy by the day. The words 'Australian Competition and Consumer Commission' should be enough to make anyone's flesh creep.

"According to Silva, permitting the Australian authorities to go ahead with the measure would dramatically worsen Google Search and YouTube and 'could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free service to use at risk in Australia'."

Oh my, I think I may have just petrified myself.

Google is telling me my data might be handed over to a corporate entity?

Never mind that Google runs my phone, tracks my location, knows my contacts, is attempting to map my interactions with others and reads my emails.

Google IS the corporate entity we should be worried about.

"We deeply believe in the importance of news to society. We partner closely with Australian news media businesses — we already pay them millions of dollars and send them billions of free clicks every year. We’ve offered to pay more to license content."

They've offered to pay more, just as long as news falls under their umbrella of control.

Well I say they don't make our laws, and they don't own our news.

Youtube already engages in some real bad conduct.

Cuts the monetisation of websites it opposes, for dubious reasons.
Then goes and doubles the amount of ads displayed anyway for a platform that now barely even relates to the real world.

Users who have their own channels can't really say what they think without fear of repercussions by Youtube.

The internet has lost what originally made it good, now it's just too controlled and based upon harvesting data and manipulating others opinions.

http://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/

Go right ahead lady, if only the threat of Google leaving our shores was real.

Google has a annual revenue stream bigger than many sovereign nations and reportedly, pays little or no tax?

As to its news content? I have no idea how much is collected by google's investigative reporters and how much is "borrowed" from other news reporting services? That mainstream media pay for?

I commend the new laws and if Google wants to play hardball? Well, there are other players eager to replace them wherever/everywhere possible?
Alan B.