Aus plans to force FB, Google to pay for news; to address power imbalance

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released its draft news media bargaining code, announced today by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

The draft code allows commercial news businesses to bargain – individually or collectively – with Google and Facebook, in order to be paid for news the tech giants publish on their services.

According to ACCC chair Rod Sims, the code aims to address the bargaining power imbalance between news publishers and major digital platforms, to bring about fair payment for news. As Frydenberg said:

We want Google and Facebook to continue to provide these services to the Australian community which are so much loved and used by Australians. But we want it to be on our terms.