The government’s legislation to force the tech giants to negotiate with news media companies is being closely watched around the world
The
Australian government tabled world-first media legislation in parliament on Wednesday that will force
Google and
Facebook to negotiate a fair payment with news organisations for using their content in Facebook’s newsfeed and Google’s search.
The Australian law is separate to a recent deal Facebook made to pay mainstream
UK news outlets millions of pounds a year to license their articles, but has a similar motivation. The social network signed the deals as it faces the threat of a government crackdown over its dominance of online advertising.