Australia Will Force Google and Facebook to Pay for News Content
The move comes as the media industry reels from tumbling advertising revenue, already in decline before the Covid 19 coronavirus outbreak collapsed the market. Australia will become the first government to impose a legal regime including financial penalties for digital platforms that profit from content produced by the news media.
The federal Government has instructed competition watchdog, the ACCC, to develop a mandatory code of conduct for the digital giants to adhere to. Writing in the Australian newspaper this morning, treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it was "only fair" that the search engines and social media giants pay for the original news content that they use to drive traffic to their sites.
The move comes as the media industry reels from tumbling advertising revenue, already in decline before the Covid 19 coronavirus outbreak collapsed the market. Australia will become the first government to impose a legal regime including financial penalties for digital platforms that profit from content produced by the news media.
The federal Government has instructed competition watchdog, the ACCC, to develop a mandatory code of conduct for the digital giants to adhere to. Writing in the Australian newspaper this morning, treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it was "only fair" that the search engines and social media giants pay for the original news content that they use to drive traffic to their sites.