A search for ‘Australia News’ on the Google homepage, organized 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 require digital platforms like Facebook and Google to pay local media and publishers to link their content to news feeds or search results.
The change was widely expected and comes days after the government introduced some last-minute amendments to the bill, officially known as the Mandatory Negotiation Code for Digital Platforms and News Media.
“The Code will ensure that news media companies are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, helping to sustain public interest journalism in Australia,” said treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher in a statement set.
They added that the government was “pleased with the progress of Google and, more recently, Facebook in reaching trade deals with Australian news media companies”.
The bill will be reviewed by the Treasury 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 on the final price that any platform will have to pay Australian news publishers, provided that a trade agreement cannot be reached independently.
The decision will come by a decision in favor of either party – the digital platform or the publisher – with no room for an intermediate agreement, according to experts.
Facebook announced on Monday that it will restore news pages in Australia, reversing an earlier decision to block access to news content in Australia in retaliation for the proposed bill then.
Google initially threatened to withdraw its search function from Australia. In the past few weeks, however, it has closed a series of important commercial deals with Australian publishers, including the Murdoch family-owned media conglomerate, NewsCorp.