IT News on November 9th: According to Reuters, a Google executive in charge of policy affairs stated on Monday local time that Australia's proposed internet regulation law could force Google to prohibit users under the age of 18 from using Gmail.

This legislation, known as the "Digital Care Obligation Act" ( Digital Duty of Care ), has been passed by the Australian House of Representatives, but it still requires cross-party support from the Senate to be officially enacted. According to the act, internet companies must take measures to remove harmful content; otherwise, they may face fines of up to 109 million Australian dollars. IT Note: At current exchange rates, this is approximately 500 million yuan.

Internet companies and advocates of freedom of speech believe that the bill grants regulatory agencies too much discretionary power, allowing them to define on their own what constitutes harmful content, thereby forcing platforms to remove it. Google's warnings reflect deeper concerns within the industry: the impact of this law could extend to everyday services on the internet.

At a hearing held in the Senate, Rachel Lord ( Rachel Lord ), the head of policy for Google's video streaming platform YouTube in Australia and New Zealand, stated that a provision in the bill requires that if there is a risk of children coming into contact with pornographic content, the relevant services must conduct age verification.

She pointed out that this regulation may force Google to implement age verification for daily communication services such as instant messaging, email, and private file storage, and may even directly prohibit minors from accessing these services.

Lod added that this means regulatory measures may involve intrusive monitoring of private communication content or file storage.

Representatives from Meta, TikTok, and Snap also expressed similar concerns. They warned that the bill grants regulatory agencies broad discretionary power to determine on their own which content or behaviors are harmful, and it will also replace some of the current industry-mandated codes of conduct, which could have a chilling effect on online communication.

Multiple corporate representatives stated that due to the uncertainties in the relevant provisions of the bill, platforms may adopt excessive content review measures in order to avoid high regulatory fines, and may even delete content that does not need to be deleted.

The Australian government has stated that only by establishing a set of rules with broad coverage can the security of the internet environment be ensured.

Currently, this hearing is still ongoing.