Australian government says Facebook, Alphabet, Google can negotiate deals

A 3 D printed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is seen in front of the displayed Google logo in this illustration.

A government report said the Australian law gives the government the power to make Facebook owner Meta Platforms and Alphabet Inc negotiate content supply deals with media outlets.

The review said that the law, which took effect in March 2021 after talks with the big tech firms led to a shutdown of Facebook news feeds in the country, may need to be extended to other online platforms.

Since the News Media Bargaining Code took effect, tech firms have had inked more than 30 deals with media outlets that they paid for content that generated clicks and advertising dollars, according to the Treasury Department report, released late Thursday.

The report said that some of the agreements have enabled news businesses to hire additional journalists and make other valuable investments to support their operations.

We consider it reasonable to conclude that the Code has been a success to date, regardless of whether or not the results will be invariably different. The report recommended that the government consider new methods of assessing the effectiveness of the law, and did not suggest changing the law itself.

The law lacked a formal mechanism to extend the Code to other platforms and suggested that the government order the competition regulators to prepare reports on the question. The review shows that the Code has been successful balancing bargaining power between news media and digital platforms, said Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones.

Digital platforms must negotiate in good faith with news businesses to make sure they are paid well for the news content they create. The company has furthered our contribution to the Australian news industry by signing deals representing 200 mastheads across the country, and most of these outlets are regional or local to the country, said Lucinda Longcroft, the company's director of government affairs and public policy in Australia.