The Fair Trade Commission is concerned with the distribution of articles to news sites operated by major IT companies, and multiple news organizations jointly request IT majors to disclose data and conclude distribution contracts. Has expressed the view that there is no problem under the Antimonopoly Act.

This was clarified on the 22nd in a collection of consultation cases on the Antimonopoly Act last year released by the Japan Fair Trade Commission.



According to this, when news organizations such as newspaper companies and TV stations distribute articles after contracting with news sites operated by major IT companies, it is not possible to jointly request disclosure of data that can verify the accuracy such as the number of views. Under the Antimonopoly Act, there is no problem.



In addition, it is no problem to request the news media to jointly conclude a contract with a news site that distributes the headline of the article without concluding a contract.



The actual contract negotiations are conditional on each company doing it individually.



It has been pointed out that there is a disparity in the bargaining power between giant IT companies and the news media regarding the distribution of articles to news sites, and it seems that attention will be paid to whether the transparency of negotiations will increase in the future.