This law is the latest iteration of newspaper's attempts to turn Google into an ATM for the industry.
The first attempt was in Germany. The law said search engines must pay newspapers to index their content. However it didn't specify what the price should be, so Google simply negotiated a fee of zero and the law was in effect nullified.
The second attempt was in Spain. It is the same law, but this time they added a clause that said the fee can't be zero. So Google News was shut down in Spain and the law was in effect nullified again.
The third attempt is in EU and Australia. In Australia it's the same law, but this time it says the fees both cannot be zero and that you aren't allowed to shut down your service. In the EU the assumption is Google can't pull out, so if a Spain-style law is passed at the Commission level then Google have to pay up.
What comes next? My guess - either this is the point where Google breaks or they pull out of Australia completely. They did it on principle for China, once, and that was a drastically larger market. But it's not the same company it once was.
It may be that Google/FB just decide indexing news isn't worth it. Bing can serve loss-making news queries. Or someone would set up a news-focused search engine in the USA that doesn't have any legal presence anywhere else. Indexing news is a much more tractable problem than indexing the entire web especially with advances in AI-driven NLP. However, there's the question of how to get people to pay for it.
edit: apparently the law is a bill of attainder and names who it applies to specifically, note these laws are unconstitutional in the USA (at least theoretically).
In the Americans with Disabilities Act, US law states that if you're going to create a place of public accommodation, there are certain minimum standards you must adhere to, to support those with disabilities. So you must install ramps and elevators for the mobility-impaired, offer audio-only interfaces for the blind, sign for the hearing impaired, and so on. These apply pretty broadly.
We can argue whether Australia's legislation is a good thing, but "if you are going to operate here, these are the standards you must follow" is not beyond the pale.
There's a difference between having to comply to certain standards when opening a new service, and being forced by government to retain a service that is unprofitable.
The first attempt was in Germany. The law said search engines must pay newspapers to index their content. However it didn't specify what the price should be, so Google simply negotiated a fee of zero and the law was in effect nullified.
The second attempt was in Spain. It is the same law, but this time they added a clause that said the fee can't be zero. So Google News was shut down in Spain and the law was in effect nullified again.
The third attempt is in EU and Australia. In Australia it's the same law, but this time it says the fees both cannot be zero and that you aren't allowed to shut down your service. In the EU the assumption is Google can't pull out, so if a Spain-style law is passed at the Commission level then Google have to pay up.
What comes next? My guess - either this is the point where Google breaks or they pull out of Australia completely. They did it on principle for China, once, and that was a drastically larger market. But it's not the same company it once was.
It may be that Google/FB just decide indexing news isn't worth it. Bing can serve loss-making news queries. Or someone would set up a news-focused search engine in the USA that doesn't have any legal presence anywhere else. Indexing news is a much more tractable problem than indexing the entire web especially with advances in AI-driven NLP. However, there's the question of how to get people to pay for it.
edit: apparently the law is a bill of attainder and names who it applies to specifically, note these laws are unconstitutional in the USA (at least theoretically).