Centre Mulling Regulation To Make Tech Giants Pay News Outlets For Their Content: Union MoS

The Indian government plans to make giants like Google, Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), Microsoft, Twitter, and others pay for using news/information published by news outlets. 

The search engines and social media platforms have earned from advertising revenues brought by viewership on both print and video following the rapid penetration of internet and smartphones over the years.

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New Delhi: The Union government is considering a regulation to make tech giants pay Indian newspapers and digital news publishers a share of their advertising revenue for using their original content. This comes after several countries such as Australia, France, and Spain, have passed legislation that requires big tech, including Google, to adequately pay content producers for using their content and also featuring them in search results. 

The rule can be introduced through regulatory interventions as part of revisions to the existing IT laws, minister of state for IT and electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar told the Times Of India. 

“The market power on digital advertising that is currently being exercised by the Big Tech majors, which places Indian media companies at a position of disadvantage, is an issue that is seriously being examined in the context of new legalisations and rules,” Chandrasekhar told TOI.

This response makes it clear that the Indian government plans to make giants like Google, Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, and others pay for using news/information published by news outlets. 

The search engines and social media platforms have earned from advertising revenues brought by viewership on both print and video following the rapid penetration of internet and smartphones over the years. As per the TOI report, the government is recognising how with the advent of social media and tech platforms a handful of Big Tech companies have been “consolidating market power”, leaving original content creators at a disadvantage. 

“The news publishers have no negotiating leverage at all, and this needs to be tackled legislatively. This is an important issue for us,” TOI quoted Chandrasekhar as saying. 

The report mentioned that the concerns were raised by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) and the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) who approached fairplay watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Google, alleging that it has abused its dominant position in news aggregation to impose unfair conditions on news publishers. The INS complaint stated it has “highlighted the fact that the producer/publisher of news which are made available in digital format, are not being paid a fair value for their content, despite them having invested heavily in creating appropriate content for the customers, who search for news items using the Google platform.” 

The CCI ordered an inquiry over the allegations against Google.