Google Meta vs India Media: Australia made a law in March 2021. The objective of this News Media Bargaining Code was to provide Australian news content publishers their fair share in digital earnings. Through this law, accountability for revenue sharing along with local publishers of Internet powerful companies like Google and Facebook was fixed. Last year, the Australian government said that its law to pay for Google-Facebook news has proved to be very effective. According to the report of Australia’s Treasury Department, these big companies made more than 30 deals with local news publishers under this law. This example of Australia is mentioned because a statement by the Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting on the press day has led to a debate on such a law in India too. Can these big companies, which are making billions from digital ads in India too, be held accountable for revenue sharing? India’s news publishers have been demanding a level playing field in digital revenues for a long time. These companies have been saying that it takes a lot of resources and money of the publishers to collect and publish the billions of rupees that these Internet companies earn just by serving as a medium for displaying news, while they do not get anything in return.
DNPA has filed a complaint
Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) has complained about these companies from the central government to the courts. In the current situation of Google and Meta vs Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), India is considering a law that will ensure fair compensation to news publishers from tech giants like Google and Meta. The law is inspired by Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, which aims to enable local news outlets to negotiate better payment deals with Big Tech platforms.
The government had talked
Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) had also demanded from the government that a revenue mechanism should be created with Google and Meta. DNPA had told the government that the business of digital news publishers is being affected due to the policies of companies like Google and Meta. In this regard, on June 12, 2024, the Central Government had also discussed this issue with the members of DNPA and officials of Google and Meta.
this is the demand
In India, there is also a debate about the ad revenue split between Google and meta and news publishers. Some argue that media organizations that publish truthful and informative news are entitled to a larger share of advertising revenues, while others emphasize the importance of the market in determining the value of content. Indian media organizations are making mainly three demands.
- Fair Compensation: Ensuring that news publishers get paid fairly for their content from tech giants.
- Advertising revenue division: The division of advertising revenue between tech giants and news publishers should be determined.
- Regulatory framework: Effective rules should be made to regulate the relationship between tech giants and news publishers.
Google and Meta’s earnings in India
CCI report
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has submitted its report after a two-year investigation into the complaints of digital news publishers against Google. CCI Director General of Investigation’s report will shed light on whether Google abused its market dominance to harm news publishers? It will also determine the regulatory position on whether Google should pay publishers for the news summaries published by the search engine in its search results.
doing harm like this
News publishers had told CCI that internet users are satisfied by reading news summaries and do not click on the news publisher’s website. This enables Google to display their ads on the search results page, but publishers lose traffic and revenue. News publishers have pointed out that they only get revenue from traffic to their sites and do not have access to data on revenue generated by search engines.
Google made a party
The CCI had ordered a probe into the matter in January 2022 on information filed by the Digital News Publishers Association, which was later combined with complaints filed by The Indian Newspaper Society and News Broadcasters and Digital Association. Alphabet Inc., Google LLC, Google India Private Limited and Google Ireland Limited have been made parties in the complaints. According to the regulator’s order initiating the probe, the petitioners told CCI that more than half of the traffic to the websites of news organizations comes through Google search results. The CCI also held that Google holds a significant market position for online digital advertising arbitration services.
Work on this idea is also going on
A recommendation by the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, led by its former chairman Jayant Sinha, in December 2022 had called for a fair bargaining code to enable news publishers to enter into fair and transparent contracts with influential technology companies, but it was proposed Digital competition was not included in the bill. Instead, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is exploring a separate stand-alone law, as there is a view that this may not actually be a competition issue.
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