Google threatens to remove search engine in Australia as spat escalates
Angus Whitley, Bloomberg News
Signage at an entrance to a building on the Google campus in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020.
, David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Google threatened to disable its search engine in Australia if itâs forced to pay local publishers for news, a dramatic escalation of a months-long standoff with the government.
A proposed law, intended to compensate publishers for the value their stories generate for the company, is âunworkable,â Mel Silva, managing director for Australia and New Zealand, told a parliamentary hearing Friday. She specifically opposed the requirement that Google pay media companies for displaying snippets of articles in search results.