来源：《经济学人》
日期：2021年1月28日
It was quite the dust-up. On January 22nd Mel Silva, Google’s managing director in Australia, claimed before the country’s Senate that a set of laws it was pondering were so damaging that, if they came into force, the firm would have “no real choice” but to withdraw its search engine from the country. Lawmakers condemned Ms Silva’s remarks as “blackmail”. Scott Morrison, the prime minister, said: “Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia. We don’t respond to threats.”
这真是一场大争吵。1月22日，谷歌在澳大利亚的总经理席尔瓦在澳大利亚参议院宣称，参议院正在考虑的一系列法律损害极大，如果这些法律生效，谷歌将“别无选择”，只能将其搜索引擎撤出澳大利亚。议员们谴责席尔瓦的言论是“恐吓”。澳大利亚总理斯科特·莫里森说：澳大利亚为你在澳大利亚可以做的事情制定规则。我们不会对威胁做出回应。
At issue are new rules that would force big tech to pay publishers to display their news alongside search results and social-media posts. News publishers, in Australia and elsewhere, have struggled in the past two decades as advertising money has flowed out of their pages and onto the internet—most of it to just two firms. Between them Google and Facebook account for perhaps 60% of worldwide digital-advertising revenues.
争论的焦点在于，新规则强制规定，大型科技公司在搜索结果和社交媒体帖子中显示发行商的新闻时，要向发行商付费。在过去的20年里，澳大利亚和世界其他地方的新闻发行商一直在苦苦挣扎，因为广告收入已经从他们的版面流向了互联网——其中大部分都流向了两家公司。谷歌和Facebook大概占了全球数字广告收入的60%。
Publishers argue that news stories are widely shared on Facebook, and are at least one reason why people use Google’s search engine. That, they say, entitles them to a share of the two firms’ spoils. The tech giants retort that, although they do not pay publishers directly, they do send readers to their websites, and that is plenty.
发行商辩称，新闻报道在Facebook上被广泛分享，看新闻至少是人们使用谷歌搜索引擎的一个原因。这使它们有权分享两家公司的利润。科技巨头反驳说，尽管他们不直接向发行商付费，但它们确实把读者送到了发行商的网站上，这样的好处已经足够了。
Both sides invoke grand principles. Australia’s government argues that Google and Facebook are monopolies, and that laws are therefore the last resort for limiting their power. It argues that news, which costs money to produce, is vital for a healthy democracy. The tech firms say that paying publishers simply for linking to their stories would break a “fundamental principle” of the web—that anyone is free to link to anything they like. And they claim Australia’s proposed law is so broad as to make compliance unfeasibly hard; hence the talk of withdrawing entirely.
双方都援引大原则。澳大利亚政府辩称，谷歌和Facebook是垄断企业，因此法律是限制其权力的最后手段。它认为，新闻制作成本高昂，对一个健康的民主国家至关重要。科技公司则表示，为发行商的新闻链接付费，将打破互联网的“基本原则”，即任何人都可以自由链接到他们喜欢的任何东西。他们还声称，澳大利亚拟议的法律过于宽泛，以至于难以切实遵守；因此才有了完全撤出的说法。
With a population of 26m, Australia accounted for $4bn of Google’s $162bn in revenue in 2019. Five years earlier, when Spain, a similarly middling market, passed a law requiring Google to pay for articles that appear in its News search, the online giant decided to pull that service from the country rather than comply.
澳大利亚人口2600万，在谷歌2019年1620亿美元的收入中占40亿美元。五年前，西班牙，一个类似的中等市场，通过了一项法律，要求谷歌为出现在其新闻搜索中的文章付费，谷歌决定关闭在西班牙的搜索业务，而不是遵守其制定的法律。
Despite such ultimatums, big tech has been making concessions of late. In October Google used a blog post from Sundar Pichai, its boss, to launch “News Showcase”, a $1bn scheme to pay some news publishers for their work. Facebook’s News Tab, launched in America in June and in Britain on January 26th, offers a similar revenue-sharing approach. And a few days before Ms Silva addressed Australia’s Senate Google announced a deal with French publishers, after years of intimidating by French regulators.
尽管下了这样的最后通牒，大型科技公司最近一直在做出让步。去年10月，谷歌利用其老板桑达尔•皮查伊的一篇博客文章推出了“新闻展示”计划，该计划耗资10亿美元，向一些新闻发行商支付报酬。Facebook的“新闻标签”，去年6月在美国推出，今年1月26日在英国推出，提供了类似的收入分享方式。就在席尔瓦女士向澳大利亚参议院发表讲话的前几天，谷歌宣布了一项与法国发行商的协议，此前法国监管机构对谷歌进行了多年的威胁。
It may be too late for a backroom arrangement in the French manner; the current row with Canberra is too public. An Australian law looks imminent. Whatever precedent the Aussies set is likely to be seized upon by other places and media groups. That may include America, where neither Joe Biden’s Democratic administration nor his Republican opponents are fans of big tech, and the EU, which passed a revenue-sharing directive in 2019 that member states must translate into national law. Google’s threat to flee Australia is just about credible. Departing America’s and Europe’s huge markets is not an option.
现在以法国的方式进行密室安排可能已经太晚了；目前科技巨头与澳大利亚政府的争端过于公开化。澳大利亚的这项法律似乎即将出台。无论澳大利亚人开创了怎样的先例，其他国家和媒体集团都可能抓住不放。这可能包括美国和欧盟，在美国，乔•拜登领导的民主党政府和他的共和党对手都不是大型科技公司的粉丝；欧盟在2019年通过了一项收入分享指令，各成员国必须将其转化为国家法律。谷歌要逃离澳大利亚的威胁几乎是可信的。离开美国和欧洲的巨大市场不是被考虑的选项。