10 votes

Facebook and Google refuse to pay revenue to Australian media

3 comments

  1. heady
    Link
    I think this is a bluff on facebook's part. They are obsessed with monopolising their share of user's attention. Forcing users to leave their ecosystem to receive local news will have a far bigger...

    I think this is a bluff on facebook's part. They are obsessed with monopolising their share of user's attention. Forcing users to leave their ecosystem to receive local news will have a far bigger impact than just the views they currently receive.

    I think it would be analogous to a supermarket refusing to sell bread. Once customers are forced to visit a bakery the convenience barrier has been broken and they may decide they may don't really need the impulse buys, or might as well visit the butcher, green grocer etc now that they are out.

    4 votes
  2. skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...]

    From the article:

    The US tech giant said in a submission to Australia’s competition watchdog that news represents a “very small fraction” of the content in an average user’s news feed.

    “If there were no news content available on Facebook in Australia, we are confident the impact on Facebook’s community metrics and revenues in Australia would not be significant,” it said in a thinly veiled threat to boycott local news companies.

    “Given the social value and benefit to news publishers, we would strongly prefer to continue enabling news publishers’ content to be available on our platform,” it said.

    [...]

    Australia’s competition regulator, the ACCC, has estimated that Google and Facebook together earn some A$6 billion (US$4 billion) a year from advertising in the country.

    [...]

    Leading news publishers have demanded the two companies pay at least 10% of that money each year to local news organizations.

    Google last month rejected the demand, saying it made barely A$10 million a year from news-linked advertising.

    1 vote