New Zealand plans to introduce laws to get Facebook and Google to pay for news

The Government of New Zealand has announced that they will introduce a law requiring platforms like Google and Meta (Facebook) to pay the local news outlets of the country for the content displayed on these platforms. 

Recently Canada and Australia had introduced similar laws. In a statement, New Zealand’s Minister of Broadcasting, Willie Jackson said that the legislation will be modelled on similar laws as Australia and Canada. "New Zealand news media, particularly small regional and community newspapers, are struggling to remain financially viable as more advertising moves online. It is crucial that those benefiting from their news content actually pay for it,” he said. 

Publishers in India have also demanded similar laws to be introduced. The CCI (Competition Commission of India) has also initiated an investigation against Google based on a complaint by DNPA (Digital News Publishers Association). Publications are of the view that platforms like Google and Facebook should pay them, as they are benefitting from the publication’s content and are displaying it on their platforms. 

In a similar investigation against Google, the CCI had concluded that Google would predominantly showcase content from its partners in its search index irrespective of if the results are relevant to the user or not. It had also concluded that Google does not pay the publishers for ‘snippets’ that appear below a hyperlink and often a user is satisfied with the content in those ‘snippets’.

Since Google does not compensate news publishers for snippets and publishers don’t earn revenue until a user actually visits their webpage, the CCI held this to be prima facie violative of Section 4(2)(a) of the Competition Act. 

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