Australia to charge Google, Facebook for content

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) – Australia will require Google and social media giant Facebook to pay for the content they use from the country, the nation’s treasurer said on Monday.

In a Twitter post, Josh Frydenberg said: “As the technology of the digital platforms has evolved, so too has their market dominance.”

“By creating a mandatory code [law], we’re seeking to be the first country in the world that successfully requires these social media giants to pay for original news content,” he added.

In a separate blog, Frydenberg said Google and Facebook were already among the most powerful and valuable companies in the world.

“For every $AU100 [$63] spent by advertisers in Australia on online advertising, excluding classifieds, $AU47 [$30] goes to Google, $AU24 [15.30] to Facebook and $AU29 [$18] to other participants,” he said.

“In Australia, this market is worth almost $AU9 billion [$5.72 billion] a year and has grown more than eight-fold since 2005,” he added.

Citing latest report of Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), Frydenberg said that 98% of online searches on mobile devices are with Google while Facebook has approximately 17 million users who are connected to its platform for at least half an hour a day.

“This has created a level of market concentration and power that was never envisaged by our regulatory system,” he said, adding that the ACCC was tasked to develop a voluntary code of conduct governing the relationships between digital platforms and media businesses.”

“The goal [is] to protect consumers, improve transparency and address the power imbalance between the parties,” he said.

The new law is expected to be ready by November.