Media compensation: in Australia, the noose is tightening on Google and Facebook
Despite pressure from Google, the Australian Senate did not bow to the bill requiring digital giants to pay media for the articles they broadcast on their platform.
AP - Matt Rourke
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The Australian Senate committee, which was examining a bill to force GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) to pay newspaper companies for articles broadcast on their respective platforms, has just released its report.
She unreservedly approves a text that could become a world reference for the regulation of the American digital giants.
Publicity
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With our special correspondent in Brisbane,
Grégory Plesse
Australian senators have remained adamant.
The law they have scrutinized in recent weeks does not need to be amended and can be submitted to Parliament for a vote within a few days.
This is very bad news for Google and Facebook.
When this law is promulgated, they will have to negotiate with the press companies an agreement of remuneration for the distribution of their articles.
Threats without effect
The plea of Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook and Sundar Pichai for
to the Australian government will not have changed anything.
No more than the threats made in recent months by the two companies.
Advertising revenue to share
Since their emergence two decades ago, giants like Google and Facebook have had very little regulation.
In Australia, the authorities have looked into the way in which they capture a significant share of advertising revenue and the consequences of this domination for media in great financial difficulty.
An Australian study shows that for 100 dollars spent on online advertising, Google receives 53 dollars, Facebook 28 dollars and the rest is distributed among other giants of the Internet.
They are accused by the press of profiting from its content without sharing the income they derive from it.To make the rules more level, Australia wants Google and Facebook to pay Australian media when they use their content. news.
Microsoft wants to fill the void
This regulation will only apply in Australia, but other countries will carefully scrutinize how it comes into effect in order to consider similar measures.
Microsoft, which, with its search engine Bing, intends to fill the void that Google threatens to leave in Australia, has supported these proposals, calling on other countries to follow the example of Canberra and the technology sector to commit to relaunch independent journalism which “
is at the heart of our democratic freedoms
”.
The US administration of former President Donald Trump was opposed to such proposals, warning of the “
long-term negative consequences
” for US businesses.
MEPs welcomed them.
In 2019, the European Union introduced a
“
neighboring right
”
which should allow the remuneration of press publishers for content used by online platforms.
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To read also: Australia: Microsoft seeks to fill the void that Google could leave
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