Australia passes law forcing Google and Facebook to pay news publications – By Daniel Van Boom, Queenie Wong (CNET) / Feb 24 2021
After a tumultous month that saw Facebook pull news from its platform in protest, Australia’s government agrees to make the News Media Bargaining Code law.
Australia on Wednesday passed a new media law that had generated noisy pushback from internet giants Google and Facebook, which didn’t want to be forced to pay publishers for news content.
After a last-minute round of senate amendments were added to the bill on Tuesday, the bill was sent back and quickly passed to the lower house on Wednesday. Under the new law, called the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, Google and Facebook are required to negotiate licensing agreements with publishers for the news articles that appear on Google search and Facebook’s feed.
The routine vote on the Code belies a half year of conflict between Australia and the internet titans. At one point, Google threatened to pull its search product out of the country, only to meekly cut deals with Australia’s biggest publishers for an estimated total of well over AU$60 million ($47 million). Similarly, Facebook took the unprecedented step of cutting news out of feeds in Australia for five days before pledging to restore it after the government offered concessions to the code. Facebook says it will begin to restore Australian news before the weekend.
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