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My current .02 on the @acccgovau's proposed News Bargaining Code: 
My initial reaction when reading it was that it was worth a try to rein in G's and F's considerable power over media here, albeit in a somewhat weird way.
Understand that in .au, our media landscape is highly concentrated and underfunded, for a number of complex reasons. Having two huge US companies take much of the advertising spend accelerated the process immensely, AIUI. Lots of $ went offshore, and quality has suffered a LOT.
The ACCC's justification makes some amount of sense once you get your head around it; news businesses are dependent upon online traffic from platforms, and lack bargaining power to get a fair price for their content (that word becomes important below).
This is due to the network effects and concentration and richness of data that these large platforms have access to. These concepts are being reaffirmed around the globe as relevant in this sort of discussion.
Some have complained that it only works for established, big news. I agree that a more diverse media landscape is important, but the Code allows news businesses as small as 150K revenue, and allows collective bargaining. That seems pro-diversity.
So, overall, I've been somewhat positive -- in the sense of 'worth a try, better than nothing' when people have asked me what I think about it.
However, there are two negative consequences of this approach that haven't seen as much discussion.
The first is that the language of the proposed legislation places a requirement on platforms to bargain even if they just link to a news businesses' site.
As @timberners_lee has pointed out, this breaks one of the fundamental design principles of the Web; that linking is always allowed. He's fought this battle before, when legal connotations were attached to linking, because it's critical for the success of the Web.
From a legal perspective, I don't think including linking - as opposed to including a larger piece of text or images - in the code balances the platforms' freedom of expression with society's need for a healthy news ecosystem well.
Linking is naming something -- it's literally 'this thing is over there.' This is like putting legal restrictions on merely saying someone's name.
Of course, it may be reasonable to put an obligation on extracted content, or interaction. It's just the inclusion of *linking* that's problematic here. While it's just designated platforms now, it's easy to imagine this being expanded in ways that will harm the web over time.
The second risk of the news bargaining code is not Google or Facebook leaving Australia; rather, it’s Google and Facebook being permanently interwoven into the fabric of the Internet, thanks to the interdependent relationships that this legislation will lock into place.
News companies will now not only rely on Google and Facebook, and have an incentive for their success, but that relationship will be enshrined into legislation. This is fundamentally anti-Internet, because the Internet is so much bigger than these large companies.
While Google and Facebook have immense power today, history shows that fortunes on the Internet can change quickly and drastically. We need to move past big platforms collecting and controlling so much of online experience.
That's difficult, because they already have many significant advantages. Competition regulators around the world are well aware of those advantages, and are documenting them in great detail.
Stepping back, so many proposed remedies to platform power *lack imagination*, because they tend to think in terms of competition as the only source of innovation, cementing big companies into their current roles albeit with regulatory constraints.
The Internet has a strong culture of innovation through cooperation -- in standards, open source, and community building. A competition-only view of the Internet robs all of us of future potential.
The first concern can be addressed by removing linking from the things that triggers an obligation to bargain. The other triggers are adequate.
The second can be addressed by putting a five-year limit on the operation of the Code, after which we can assess the impact of other, more direct actions against big platforms (and there are likely to be a fair number).
Note also that the Code has just been recommended by the Senate Economics Committee: they respond to many criticisms, but not these: https://www.australiancompetitionlaw.info/news/2021-2-12-n5dv0z9l0b3umlmss06dwpui3obcqr
It's important to get this right, because there's already discussion of similar measures elsewhere: https://theplatformlaw.blog/2021/02/12/following-in-australias-footsteps-eu-to-make-google-and-facebook-pay-for-news/
