On January 13, the The Australian Financial Review reported that Google was adjusting algorithms to block Australian news sites, as part of an “experiment.” A Google spokesperson confirmed this report, saying that the adjusted algorithms would “reach about 1% of Google Search users in Australia to measure the impacts of news businesses and Google Search on each other.” This is Google’s latest retaliatory effort against the ACCC’s News Media Bargaining Code. The Google spokesperson told Guardian Australia that the experiments should finish by early February. A spokesperson for Nine—the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and the AFR—called Google’s actions “a chilling illustration of their extraordinary market power.” Read more here.
Members of the News/Media Alliance staff have contributed to this post.
