A congressional panel will today kick off its antitrust investigation into Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook with an examination of the way they affect the news media landscape.
The investigation coincides with the publication of a new report from the News Media Alliance which concludes that Google received an estimated $4.7 billion in revenue last year from crawling and scraping news publishers’ content.
Today's hearing by the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, led by Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline, will examine whether current antitrust laws are effective in preventing anti-competitive behaviour.
"I think we’re going to hear about what the impact has been on the news industry as a result of this huge market dominance," Cicilline says.
This bill will provide a much-needed lifeline to local publishers who have been crushed by Google and Facebook. It’s about time we take a stand on this issue."
Scheduled to testify at the hearing is David Chavern, head of publishers’ campaign group the News Media Alliance. He has pushed hard for the introduction of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, currently making its way through the US Congress, which would allow publishers to negotiate collectively with the platforms.
"Journalism is critical to our civic society. The major tech platforms know this and they extract the value from our reporting without adequately compensating the publishers who create it," he says. "News publishers need the ability to band together to negotiate a sustainable future for quality journalism."
According to the News Media Alliance report, in the year to January 2018, traffic from Google Search to news publisher sites rose by more than 25 per cent to approximately 1.6 billion visits per week. The proportion of news in Google search results, it says, ranges from 16 to 40 per cent.
"News publishers need to continue to invest in quality journalism, and they can’t do that if the platforms take what they want without paying for it. Information wants to be free, but reporters need to get paid," says Chavern.
Rather optimistically, perhaps, e-commerce trade association NetChoice is attempting to portray the internet giants as underdogs being bullied by the media.
"Big media is showing its true colors by supporting antitrust exemptions for themselves, while demanding tougher antitrust enforcement on tech businesses," says NetChoice vice president and general counsel Carl Szabo.
"Rather than looking for government to tear down tech businesses, big media should follow tech’s lead and innovate so they are more competitive."
It's not clear how long the investigation will run, nor precisely what will fall within its remit. But it comes at the same time as antitrust inquiries by both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. Already, the EU has taken action against Google owner Alphabet, fining it billions for anti-competitive practices.
