The Australian government will send a bill to Parliament next week on a new code of conduct that requires Facebook and Google to pay for links to news articles.
Australia will be the first country in the world where this is the case. Initially, the legislation only applied to Facebook News Feed and Google Search.
“Parliament will consider the bill in the week that begins on February 15th,” said Josh Friedenberg, Australian Treasury Minister. If the bill also gets support from the opposition, the law, which Google says is “impractical”, could remain in effect this month.
The fact that the procedure regarding the new law is moving so fast is partly due to the fact that the Senate committee that studied the proposal has no further recommendations.
Google and Facebook were unable to immediately respond to the news. The companies have put a lot of pressure on Friedenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison in recent months hoping they will step down.
Google tried to show the bill was unnecessary
Google launched a news platform in Australia last month that pays for news. Before that, Google struck independent deals with publishers. The company was hoping to be able to prove the invoice was unnecessary.
In January, Google and French publishers agreed on an arrangement whereby Google pays news media for the right to display an online copy. It was the first deal of its kind in Europe.
