Small Business Women Australia founder Amanda Rose says small businesses should be incentivised to make use of alternative search engines since Google has a monopoly on the nation’s search market.
Ms Rose said the heated talks surrounding the government’s news media bargaining code has forced small businesses which rely on Google to think about alternative ways to reach clients.
“Google does have a monopoly … we should be encouraging people to use other search engines so it’s fair,” she said.
“We need a good PR campaign, so we need to educate people and communicate through print and TV and radio and through other social channels to say, ‘use a different search engine’.
“We also need small businesses to be incentivised to promote and to pay those search engines.
“So, the government could say, or someone could say, you know, the actual provider, we’ll give you $10,000 to do ads on our search engine instead, or to use us instead.
“It wouldn’t be too hard if other search engines stepped up … like Microsoft, they’ve said … we’ll agree to this code and we’ll pay for the content of these news providers and journalists.
“I think that’s commendable and … we should be looking into that”.
While Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says Google has walked back its threat to withdraw its search engine from Australia, Ms Rose said it would still be good to explore alternative search engines.
“Even when a deal is made, we should be considering what happens if it goes, or if Facebook goes, or Instagram, so we need to be prepared for that,” she said.
