In a boost for news publishers operating in the online news media market, the Standing Committee on Finance headed by Jayant Sinha has called for “regulatory provisions” to ensure that news publishers get a “fair share” of the digital advertising revenues earned by big tech platforms from the content being monetised by them.

This recommendation should be music to the ears of the diverse and numerous online news publishers in the country who get share of digital advertising revenues primarily from few leading Big Tech digital platforms such as Google and Facebook. 

The Committee is of the opinion that regulatory provisions are required to ensure that news publishers are able to establish contracts with Systemically Important Digital Intermediaries (SIDIs) through a “fair and transparent process”, said the Parliamentary Panel report.

The Panel has through this recommendation sought to address the information asymmetry that existed between the news publishers and the Big Tech platforms, sources said.

Till now, the key point of dispute was that the  news publishers  were in the “dark”as to how much the tech giants were earning from digital advertising through monetisation of the news publishers’ content. News Publishers so far had no negotiating power with Big Tech and also did not know the size of the pie that is being cut for them to conclude that they were indeed getting a fair share of revenues, sources added. 

Infact, the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), the representative organization of newspapers in the country, had in February last year knocked CCI doors filing a complaint of abuse of dominance by Google. 

INS had alleged abuse of dominance by Google as regards News Referral Services and Google Ad Tech Services in the Indian online news media market.

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