Google has threatened to pull its search engine from Australia if it passed a bill which seeks to regulate charges on tech giants for carrying local news content.
According to AP, Google opposes the Australian plan, which would see an arbitration panel dictate terms if an online platform and a news business can't agree on prices for carrying news.
Mel Silva, the managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand told a Senate inquiry into the bill, “If this version of the code were to become law, it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google search available in Australia."
“And that would be a bad outcome not only for us, but also for the Australian people, media diversity, and the small businesses who use our products every day,” she said, according to AP.
However, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was undeterred, telling reporters “we don’t respond to threats.”
“Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia,” AP reported Morrison as saying. “That’s done in our Parliament. It’s done by our government. And that’s how things work here in Australia.”
Australian officials have recently expressed discomfort with social media companies' acts of censorship, notably against Donald Trump.