Google and Microsoft's public squabble over who's the worst is giving us life right now, not gonna lie

Google and Microsoft were locked in a rare public war of words on Friday as the US House subcommittee on antitrust held a hearing to discuss how Big Tech has impacted the media. As lawmakers in Australia and Europe consider passing legislation to force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for using news content, Microsoft has …

[Anonymous Coward]

Murdoch: "F*C*book and Google are promoting our news sites without paying us! We must demand money!"

F*c*book: F*ck off!

Aus.gov: "END OF THE WORLD!!!!!"

F*ck off. F*ck the news sites, f*ck F*c*book, f*ck the lot of them.

But you know what? F*c*book is right. Paying Murdoch is a f*cking crime.

It's better to ban sharing news that pay that asshat.

[ecofeco]

There are no good guys in that scenario.

Let them enter the Thunderdome!

[Jason Hindle]

Bust a deal; face the wheel!

[TaabuTheCat]

And two men enter, no man leaves please.

[sabroni]

re: F*ck off. F*ck the news sites, f*ck F*c*book, f*ck the lot of them.

For fucks sake, grow up and stop self censoring.

[ecofeco]

IBM enters the chat

IBM has entered the chat.

[MiguelC]

Re: IBM enters the chat

IBM as currently no one available to chat. Please hold. Your contact is important to us. Please hold....

(ICON: would the last one out please turn off the lights)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: IBM enters the chat

Who?

[sbt]

Reminds me of the chirpy shit-stirrers on the side-lines ...

... egging on the kids actually doing the fighting and looking for an opportunity to dart in with a weak-ass flailing kick on someone, anyone.

Sad.

[Dan 55]

"But... their emails"

Where did I hear that excuse before?

[Ken Moorhouse]

Cue Alta Vista...

It's time to head down to the phone box and don the red pants.

Oh no... we got rid of all the phone boxes...

[Hubert Cumberdale]

It's Google.

Google are the worst. But that's only because Microsoft are crap at it: they wish they were as evil as Google, but they just can't get it right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's Google.

With Google services, the public hasn't paid cash for anything.

Microsoft clients have to pay to be abused. Just like Google's advertising clients.

That the lawmakers can fine both is incidental.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's Google.

Actually, there are people who pay for Google services.

And paying with your data is still paying even if you believe you're getting it for free, Which is actually what Google wants you to believe, as greed is always a good way to blind people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's Google.

That's barter. Not cash.

And no one forces you do so.

[Falmari]

Re: It's Google.

Its not barter its cash. Googles profits are not quoted in how many sheep, cows, and turnips they have, it is quoted in billions of dollars. Where does that profit come from the public.

I don’t use google services I have no Google account, no Android phone and don’t use Google search. But they still take my fucking data and monetarise it via targeted ads. My data and they don’t even pay me for it. I am the one paying them to use my data. They charge the ad companies to place ads targeted and non-targeted. The ad companies charge their clients who add that cost to the goods and services they sell that we the public buy.

Even if I never used the internet Google would still have their hands in my pocket because the ad cost is still on those goods and services I purchase.

Nothing is free certainly not the internet and Google are forcing me to pay even if I don’t use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's Google.

First world problem.

You would be better channelling your rants into something more productive and stop worrying about things you have zero control over.

[Terry 6]

Re: It's Google.

Barter/cash/credit ledgers are all just mechanisms for the exchange of value. As such are interchangeable. I pay for your eggs whether I give you Euros, crypto-coins, credit card number or flour.

[iron]

Re: It's Google.

> With Google services, the public hasn't paid cash for anything.

I'd rather pay cash than the Google alternative.

[Chris G]

Behavioural, data based advertising

One of the biggest lies out there, I never get anything better than ads offering to sell me something that aI have just bought, nothing in the way of related products so the analysis is about as basic as it can get.

This is just another pot and kettle spat.

[Warm Braw]

Get Google and Facebook to negotiate over the use of news content

Since an unhealthy slice of online content is now simply aimed at putting the adverts served by Facebook or Google in front of people's eyeballs, the obvious solution in our post-truth culture would be for Facebook and Google to use their much-vaunted AI technology to write their own clickbait.

[ThatOne]

Re: Get Google and Facebook to negotiate over the use of news content

Indeed, the solution is to drop the pretended real-world news and just feed them sound bites from "people" and "influencers".

And since those tend to get greedy really fast, make sure there is a rolling system of (cheap) newcomers progressively and constantly overshadowing the (expensive) established ones. That way you can force them to work for nothing and catch up with sponsoring, which will result in ads interspersed with ads! Google heaven!

[iron]

Re: Get Google and Facebook to negotiate over the use of news content

I think that is called Twitch and Goog already missed the boat.

[Mike 137]

Predictably

Pots and kettles shouting abuse at each other across the kitchen dresser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Err being a monopoly isn't illegal

But it does mean you're (rightly) subject to increased scrutiny.

That may or may not result in court cases. Which may or may not result in changes.

However, accusation doesn't equal criminality, no matter how big your monopoly is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time Google was a pretty good search engine. Then they started poisoning search results with ads and mostly irrelevant sponsored "results" and almost overnight became "meh"

[Anonymous Coward]

And censoring stuff...

[ThatOne]

> and almost overnight became "meh"

and almost overnight became filthy rich...

[a_yank_lurker]

Slime vs Sewage

The Rejects of Redmond are showing their sliminess about Chocolate Factory's sewage. The stench is pretty bad from both. Both are ignoring one of the issues affecting journalism which has nothing to do with ad revenue. Many journalist sites are not worth a regular visit as their content is mostly trash; it's the rare story that is important to warrant a visit. Important stories are often covered by many sites.

[Anonymous Coward]

End of an era?

I have definitely noticed some big changes over the past couple of months:

1 ) More and stricter paywalls for media outlets.

2 ) Requests for email registration in lieu of money as a paywall (e.g., BBC two weeks ago)

3 ) Comment sections disappearing

I think this might be due to cookies being slowly deprecated. Therefore paywalls are needed to generate cash to replace advertising. Email can work as a replacement tracking handle. Mining comments for psychological/political profiling is no longer as effective without cookies.

Overall, I think the change is good, and media will hopefully be able to generate more revenue from sales, and perhaps less obnoxious methods of advertising.

As for Google, with diminished revenue from advertising, they will be forced to innovate in new areas, which could be a very positive thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC - Re: End of an era?

I certainly do not want Google to innovate in new areas. Especially in web standards.

[Mark192]

I found El Reg...

I found El Reg through a Google News thingy.

[DJV]

Re: I found El Reg...

I found El Reg before I'd ever heard of Google - it was probably via Alta Vista.

[Pascal Monett]

Times change

"The accelerating crisis in news and journalism reflects the shift away from traditional advertising – ie, television, radio, and print – to digital advertising, enabled by the emergence of the internet and fueled by behavioral data-based targeting ”

The only problem Borkzilla has with that is that it is not Borkzilla that benefits from this change.

So the ad landscape has changed. Well, sucks to be the third wheel now, doesn't it ? Ballmer should have woken up to the new landscape, instead of burying Borkzilla into the same old scenario.

In any case, it's too late now. Google is holding all the cards, Chrome is eating your lunch and, as usual, the only thing your browsers are good for are for downloading something people actually use.

Pathetic.

[Terry 6]

Google News

Anything that dissuades people from relying on news selected for them rather than telling us what is actually going on in the world is surely a good thing.

[mandeep]

Anti-trust them all!

While DOJ looks at google they should also look at Microsofts licensing practices, O365 can only run on prem or in their cloud, not in anybody elses cloud. This is a clear grab for desktop workloads that will drag apps into their cloud and needs to be looked at as a clear anti-trust violation.

[Bob Whitcombe]

Be Careful What You Ask For

While GOOG already has agreements in place and fee models with news agencies - where are the same agreements for MSFT? Ultimately - you get the price too high - they will just set the bots to making up their own news - and these days - who would know?

[FlamingDeath]

Crikey that Murdoch fella would be the first to scream COMMUNIST! in your face, but when the chips are down, the old cunt shows his true colours.

So even if everybody finally stops paying for Murdochs shitrags, they’re never gonna go to the wall because they’ve effectively successfully lobbied for free money hand outs.

What ever fucking happened to capitalism!? Murdoch!? You shape shifting cuntstain!!

Man this shit annoys me

[Craig100]

Devs to the rescue?

So you have a site that you invite people to put content on but you want "some" people to pay to put content on (News outlets).

Then you have Google, the master manipulator (or so it thinks!), switching from 3rd party cookies to what are effectively scripts disguised as 1st party (because you redirect a subdomain to point to them) so they can still thieve whatever details they can via your browser.

Wouldn't it be amazing if developers just refused to comply?