This is what the country’s Treasury Secretary, Josh Friedenberg, said. In recent days, he spoke with Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook and CEO of Googe Sundar Pichai.
Google has previously threatened to shut down the search engine in Australia if the company is forced to pay for the news under new legislation. Facebook planned to prevent Australians from sharing the news on its platform.
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Google wants to compensate media companies with the new product “News Showcase”. With this part, media editors can decide for themselves which articles they want to present for free via Google News. For example, media companies can use the Google component to recruit more subscribers for digital subscriptions.
The first major Australian news organization announced on Monday that it has reached an agreement with the search engine. Google already has a deal with 121 media companies in France to provide news.
Commercial value
A Google spokesperson said the company is in talks with “big and small” Australian publishers.
A Facebook spokesperson said the company is negotiating to “close deals that reflect the commercial value of the news on our platform.”
Controversial bill
In Australia, a bill was sent to Parliament this week requiring companies like Google and Facebook to pay media companies to use the news.
The dispute over this law between Google and the Australian government has raged recently so much that Google threatened to shut down the search engine for use from Australia. Google considers the invoice “not applicable.” Through deals with major publishers on the News Showcase section, Google hopes to provide an alternative to the law that applies to all search results.
Google has yet to launch News Showcase in the Netherlands. A spokesman says he has “no news yet” on the matter.
Europe
For years, news publishers have complained that they are not taking advantage of the money Google gets in exchange for ads that appear around search results when someone searches for news.
MEPs also believe the time is right to charge Google and Facebook for news article links. They want this proposal to be included in the stricter rules the European Union wants to impose on tech companies.
