Australia: Google hits back at ACCC

Google Australia managing director Melanie Silva has accused the competition regulator of overlooking more than three billion referrals to Australian news organizations and existing commercial agreements, brushing off the need for a code to govern business deals with local media companies.

Ms Silva hit back against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recommendation that platforms such as Facebook and Google draw up codes of conduct for how they negotiate commercial deals with media companies, including revenue and data sharing.

“The proposal for regulator-sanctioned negotiation of revenue sharing between platforms and news publishers overlooks existing commercial arrangements between Google and Australian news publishers and the broader value that Google provides through referred web traffic and technology,” Ms Silva wrote in a blog post, summarizing the search and advertising giant’s submission to the Treasury on the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry.

Google has not made its full submission to the Treasury public. Ms Silva’s blog did not address the ACCC’s ruling that there was an imbalance of bargaining power between the tech giants and local media companies. Facebook strenuously denied there was an imbalance in its submission.

Full Content: Financial Review

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