Australia to force Google, Facebook to pay for news

 

Canberra: Australia has made a provision for Google and Facebook to pay if they use content of Australian media.

In the draft of ethics guidelines issued by the government, it has been mentioned that Facebook and Google have to pay the Australian news media business.

Though other countries in the world have been trying and failing to implement this system, Australia has come with the ethics guidelines to facilitate the payment to the news media.

According to Google, the decision of the government is one-sided and this will negatively affect the digital economy.

The media houses in Australia said that this step will help the media to pay salaries and reduce job cuts during the time of crisis. In the proposed draft, even if these two companies deny the agreement, the government will play the role of mediator to implement the system.

Both the companies can give their suggestion till 28 and after that, the draft will be taken to the parliament. On violating the guideline, the companies have to pay 10 per cent or around 7.2 million US dollar as fine.

The representatives of Google and Facebook said that they have been studying the proposal now.

Source: Agency