In recent years, Google has signed several deals with news and content generators<\/a> as well as publishers worldwide to pay for content. This includes local and national publications in the UK, Germany, Australia, Brazil, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Ireland.
Lawmakers in Australia and most recently in Canada have passed orders forcing platforms such as Google to pay publishers for their content.
Speaking virtually at a select media gathering, Pichai<\/a> underlined the search giant’s “deep commitment” to India and that it realises “the critical role news plays in India, particularly with the long heritage and the fact that it works in so many languages, including all the vernacular languages.”
“These things take time and so we are working through some of those conversations,” said the 49-year-old CEO who has been at the helm of Google’s parent Alphabet since 2019. He was appointed Google CEO<\/a> in August 2015.
Responding to ET’s queries about the likelihood of India insisting that social media platforms take responsibility for the content on their sites, Pichai said \"We will approach it with a view of making sure we understand the Indian government's desire to protect its citizens. I think that's an important principle. And we will take that principle to heart and work with that in mind,” Pichai said.
Currently, India grants immunity to internet<\/a> firms from user-generated content on their platforms under the IT Act. However, the government has been rethinking the provision arguing that firms need to be more accountable given the spread of fake news and misinformation on their platforms.
Pointing out that Google hoped to have continued data flow between countries even as the concept of “splinternet” was taking ground across many countries, especially in light of the Russia-Ukraine war, Pichai said, countries must find the best way to “protect the sovereignty” of their citizens and that it was “an important framework to think through”.
Pichai however added that it’s important to note that countries benefit a lot from being connected to the global economy, specifically for their exporters, small to medium companies and content creators. “We all need to work hard to make sure that the Internet continues to work well,” he told the reporters drawn from across the Asia-Pacific region.
There are “benefits from free, open and interoperable internet which allows for free flow of ideas, economies to be interconnected, and so on…\" he said.
Citing the example of the US and Europe which had to meticulously thrash out an agreement to make sure data flows continued between the two continents, Pichai said he hoped there would be “strong bilateral conversations as well as multilateral conversations for these things”.
Digital India<\/strong>
For Google expanding its business into vernacular languages in India is a big focus, more so, as the world’s largest open Internet market with close to 700 million Internet users is expected to see the next set of users coming from non-English speaking markets.
On Wednesday, Google also said in a statement that it had expanded its Google News Showcase programme which was launched in May last year to 130 publications in India.
“We are deeply committed to the Indian economy and the digitalization of India's economy. We have announced a $10 billion India Development<\/a> Fund and, and so will continue to play a role constructively there,” Pichai added.
In July 2020, the search giant announced a $10 billion fund for India. Pichai had then also said that Google would leverage AI for social good in areas like health, education and agriculture. Google had invested Rs 33,737 for a 7.73 per cent stake in Reliance<\/a> Jio Infocomm’s Jio Platforms. And later ploughed in Rs 5224.4 crore for a 1.28 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel<\/a>, it has invested in other startups such as Dunzo, InMobi's Glance<\/a>, DotPe, Dailyhunt, Fynd, Scribble Data, and Wysa.
On Wednesday, Pichai also said that countries stepping up their regulation of Big Tech companies and even considering breaking up some of them was a “natural evolution” as digital had become a deeper part of everyone’s lives.
“We may make changes in our products, in anticipation of some of these regulations. For example, if you take an area like Google Play, we've been thinking hard about what kind of changes can be made, and some of it is to address regulatory concerns. Some of it is done to address developer concerns. Similarly, on Google Cloud, we are supporting data sovereignty in some countries,” Pichai said.
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