Australia to charge Google, Facebook for content

Australia will require Google and social media giant Facebook to pay for the content they use from the country, the nation's treasurer said on Monday.

In a Twitter post, Josh Frydenberg said: "As the technology of the digital platforms has evolved, so too has their market dominance."

"By creating a mandatory code [law], we're seeking to be the first country in the world that successfully requires these social media giants to pay for original news content," he added.

In a separate blog, Frydenberg said Google and Facebook were already among the most powerful and valuable companies in the world.

"For every $AU100 [$63] spent by advertisers in Australia on online advertising, excluding classifieds, $AU47 [$30] goes to Google, $AU24 [15.30] to Facebook and $AU29 [$18] to other participants," he said.

"In Australia, this market is worth almost $AU9 billion [$5.72 billion] a year and has grown more than eight-fold since 2005," he added.

Citing latest report of Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), Frydenberg said that 98% of online searches on mobile devices are with Google while Facebook has approximately 17 million users who are connected to its platform for at least half an hour a day.

"This has created a level of market concentration and power that was never envisaged by our regulatory system," he said, adding that the ACCC was tasked to develop a voluntary code of conduct governing the relationships between digital platforms and media businesses."

"The goal [is] to protect consumers, improve transparency and address the power imbalance between the parties," he said.

The new law is expected to be ready by November.