Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’ Google Threatens To Pullout Of Australia On ACCC’s Proposals To Pay For Local Media

Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), threatened to stop its search engine in Australia if the nation goes ahead with its proposal to pay for the links to content. The company says its advertising services are helping the businesses to connect with the customers. It also helps the publishers to get connected with new audiences. Google says businesses and publishers can generate more revenues and boost growth.

ACCC proposes to limit access to online histories

ACCC (The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) proposes to limit the capability of search giant – Google’s access to the online histories of users. It prevents Google from cross-selling products and enjoys monetary benefits.

Let’s users select a data-sharing company

The Australian regulators are considering to permitting users to select data sharing companies like Google and improve competition and end the monopoly in harnessing data.

The demand for digital advertising in Australia is $2.6 billion. Australian regulator says the digital ads business lacks competition and transparency. According to ACCC, the share of Google in the digital ads business in Australia is between 50% and 100% and varies based on the services.

In a telephonic interview with Reuters, Rod Sims, the chair of ACCC, said Google is the only firm capable of making ads effective. It does the homework before releasing them and ensures its effectiveness. Sims said a lot of wrong things happening in the market with a monopoly enjoyed by Google.

The proposals will add a fire to the campaign of the antitrust regulator to keep a check on the data harnessing power of Tech Giants – Facebook and Google.

ACCC’s proposals bats for Google to pay for the local media for the content that directs the traffic to their sites. Google says no to this idea and plans to pull out of the nation. According to ACCC, preventing data collected from one source to be used in an unrelated field reduces the single player’s capability to dominate in the digital ads.

The proposals can be submitted to the regulator for the next month. After submission of the final report in August 2021, the Australian Government will decide on making the recommendations into law.

The US tells Australia to scrap proposals

The US government asked the Australian Government to scrap the proposals that make Facebook and Google pay for the local media outlets for their shared news. However, Australia will continue with its decision to force the tech giants to pay for news sourced from local media.