A “Australia News” search on the Google homepage, hosted on a desktop computer in Sydney, Australia, on Friday, January 22, 2021.
David Gray | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Australia has passed a new law that will force digital platforms like Facebook and Google to pay local media and publishers to link their content to news feeds or search results.
The move was long overdue and comes days after the government introduced some last-minute amendments to the bill, officially known as the Mandatory Bargaining Code for Digital Media and Platforms.
“The Code will ensure that media companies are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, which will help maintain public interest journalism in Australia,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said in a joint statement. .
They added that the government was “pleased to see the progress of Google and more recently Facebook in reaching trade agreements with Australian media companies”.
The Treasury will review the law within a year of its inception, officials said.
What did Facebook and Google do?
Both Facebook and Google have been fighting the law since last year.
Essentially, Australia will become the first country where a government-appointed arbitrator can decide the final price that any of the platforms will have to pay to Australian news publishers, as long as a trade agreement cannot be reached independently.
The decision will be made by a ruling in favor of either party (the digital platform or the publisher), with no room for a media agreement, according to experts.
In this week’s amendments, the government said the parties involved will get a two-month mediation period to negotiate agreements before they are allowed to enter arbitration as a last resort.
Facebook announced Monday that it will restore news pages in Australia, reversing an earlier decision to block access to news content in Australia in retaliation against the then bill.
Facebook vice president for global news associations Campbell Brown said on Tuesday that the Australian government has clarified that the technology company will retain the ability to decide whether news appears on its platform so that it is not automatically subject to forced negotiation.
Google initially threatened to withdraw its search function from Australia. However, in recent weeks a number of prominent business deals have been established with Australian publishers, including the Murdoch NewsCorp family’s media conglomerate.
Australia’s new law could set a precedent for how other countries regulate Big Tech. Countries like France have taken some steps to get tech companies to pay for the news, while others like Canada and the UK are studying their next steps.