Google Australia Managing Director Mel Silva in a hearing with Parliament said the policy remains "unworkable" and Google is ready to exit the Australian market.
Mel Silva added that Google would deactivate Google Search in Australia if parliament continued the Act proposed by Prime Minister Scott John Morrison's government.
"If this rule is passed into law, it will not give us a real choice but to stop providing Google Search in Australia," Mel Silva said as quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday (22/1/2021).
This is the first time the digital giant has made threats to deactivate its main search function to all Australians in response to the law.
Asked on Friday about Google's statement, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government would not respond to threats.
"Australia sets the rules for the things you can do in Australia. It's done in our Parliament. It's done by our government, and that's how it works here in Australia," he said.
"People who want to work with that, in Australia, you are very welcome. But we are not responding to threats."
Mel Silva described the ultimatum as a "worst case scenario", adding: "This is not a threat. It is reality".
"We have to conclude that after looking at the legislation in detail we don't see a way, with financial and operational risks, can continue to offer services in Australia," he said.
Mel Silva reiterates Google's longstanding argument that the rule will "undermine" Google's business model by forcing it to pay for news content to provide links to their news content - a move that the trillion-dollar company claims undermines the concept of a free and open internet.
Previously, Australia drafted a law that forced Google and Facebook to pay the mass media for news content displayed on this technology platform.
In Australia, there has been an imbalance in which Google and Facebook get large revenue from digital advertising even though they have no content, while the mass media which have content gets a small portion.
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