The classes are run by Droneit Group, an Australian company that credits learners flying unmanned aircraft, but is now redesigning its strategies. after web search giant Alphabet Inc Google threatened to leave the market.
“(I found Droneit via) Google, Google search,” said one of his students, Terry Worsfold, who is pursuing his remote pilot license.
“Yeah, just organic products, no ads. I looked at a couple of their competitors, then I reached out to them, and it looked like they had the best deal.”
Google’s threat has left a marketplace where business data shows it has a 94% stake driven by Canberra’s effort to adopt the world’s first laws regarding content payments.
That prospect has moved some Australian businesses to switch services to Microsoft.
“We need to pivot our marketing strategy and website strategy,” said Viktor Nikolov, Droneit digital campaign manager. “We will also shift much of our focus to social media.”
Last month Google said it would withdraw core services if it and Facebook Inc. paid media companies for the right to use their content, as the measure predicts.
Both companies have been lobbying Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the past few days, but widespread unrest is expected to force some businesses to seek alternatives.
The laws would require Google and Facebook to strike link contracts with Australian media whose content drives traffic to their platforms. If they can’t, the government will appoint a mediator to do it for them.
Until recently, most countries have stood by while advertisers redirect spending to the world’s largest social media website and search engine, depleting newsrooms of the their main source of income and leading to widespread closure and job losses.
But regulators are beginning to test their power to resume in the two big companies, which together account for more than four-fifths of Australia’s online advertising costs, said Treasurer Josh Frydenberg .
Google has argued that the legislation, which is now the subject of parliamentary scrutiny but was due to be enacted soon, is unworkable. In October they said they planned to pay $ 1 billion to publishers worldwide for their news over the next three years.
Google has said the government is avoiding “billions of clicks” that it sends to Australian news publishers every year.
It is reviving plans to launch its own news website in Australia within weeks, perhaps as early as this month, in a high-profile campaign against the plan.
In preparation for another training trip, Worsfold said Google was unlikely to deliver on its threat, however.
“I think it’s a bluff,” he said. “I don’t think anything is going to happen. I think it’s fog and a mirror.”