Facebook to be forced to pay advertising companies in Australia

Facebook and Google will be forced to share advertising revenue with Australian media companies, Report says, citing ABC.

Thus, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has developed a new code.

According to the code, Facebook, Google and other companies must allocate a certain amount of money for news agencies. The code was to require the companies to negotiate in good faith on how to pay news media for use of their content, advise news media in advance of algorithm changes that would affect content rankings, favour original source news content in search page results, and share data with media companies.This is because these agencies use their content.

The code was due to be finalised in November 2020, but after limited success in early negotiations between the platforms and the news industry – and in light of the sharp decline in ad revenue – the government has now asked the ACCC to write a mandatory code.