Govt, digital publishers discuss ad revenue sharing with big tech firms

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday, held exploratory talks with online news publishers and other related departments on the demand of the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) for a revenue sharing mechanism with big tech firms such as Google and Meta for using their content.

The meeting was chaired by Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju where representatives from the DNPA and other government departments were present.

The DNPA had petitioned the government to evolve a revenue sharing mechanism with big technology companies such as Google and Meta that aggregate and distribute content created by others and monetise the internet traffic generated in the process.

According to the DNPA, such practices have been adversely affecting the business of the digital news publishers.

Australia and Canada have taken legal steps that make big technology companies pay the local news publishers for the content generated by them and used by the platforms linked to such mega firms.

The meeting convened by Jaju was for understanding the issues raised by the DNPA in their communication to the government about evolving a consensus on a legal framework required to address the issues of "imbalance of bargaining power, unfair competition and sharing of advertising revenue between technology companies/ intermediaries and Indian digital news publishers." The DNPA, an umbrella organisation of India's top 18 news publishers, has been insisting that the media houses in India receive their fair share of revenue from the big tech companies for the content they publish.