Government to amend code as Google closes in on further News Showcase deals
The Australian Government will amend the News Media Bargaining Code this week to ensure Google and Facebook would make lump sum payments under the proposed law, rather than paying for clicks.
The announcement comes just days after Google struck its biggest News Showcase deal yet with Seven, while an article in The Sydney Morning Herald today claims that Nine has signed a letter of intent with Google for a five year multimillion News Showcase deal. With Google’s “worst case scenario” threat to pull its search function from the market still looming, those licensing agreements can reportedly be terminated if the code remained unchanged.
