CompCom inquiry becomes the new beachhead after tech giant refuses to disclose how much it earns from SA news content.
The relationship between South Africa’s major publishers and Google has turned hostile and may trigger an aggressive face-off between the parties as the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry gains momentum.
They request that Google disclose information about its local operations and precisely how much money it makes from aggregating their news content, which they deem critical to ensure that any future negotiations are fair and on a level playing field. He said it is the media’s job to hold governments accountable, and in the past the media was funded by advertising.
“The free press is too important to democracy and our constitutional freedoms to ignore the words of poet Dylan Thomas – who tells us: ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’.”Google communicated its decision not to disclose any of the requested information to Caxton in a letter marked “confidential”.
The Google letter adds that the “requested information is not required to protect the right to press freedom, and we deny that Google’s products limit the media’s freedom”. ADVERTISEMENT CONTINUE READING BELOW “Our products promote freedom of expression, including freedom of the press. Every day, we link hundreds of millions of people worldwide, including South Africans, to publishers’ websites containing the news that people want to read.
Such countries include Australia, Brazil, the United States, Canada and Indonesia. Similar processes are also ongoing in many other countries.
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