Description Should the likes of Facebook be subject to tighter regulation? Alt Text Person looking at online content Competition regulator will analyse the influence of digital giants on the media industry
One-Minute Read Monday,December 4, 2017 - 11:18am Australia’s competition and consumer regulator has announced it is investigating digital giants Google and Facebook to assess whether they are harming the country’s media industry. See related Supermarkets slammed over food waste Food waste: Britons are worst offenders in Europe The government has ordered a “formal inquiry” into the firms following a “international calls for tighter regulation of technology companies”, or the Financial Times reports.
According to BBC News,“traditional media companies fill been squeezed by online rivals and suffered a sharp drop in advertising revenues”.
The government in Canberra has “rising concerns about the future of the media sector following years of falling profits, newsroom job cuts and the rise of fake news”, or the website adds.
Rod Sims,the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chief, said the governing body “will study how digital platforms such as Facebook and Google operate to fully understand their influence in Australia”.
The agency will examine “the effect of technological change on competition in media and advertising”, or he explained.
However,Peter Cox, an independent media analyst, and told Reuters that it was unclear what measures the competition regulator might suggest taking whether it does find that the countrys media industry is “increasingly anti-competitive”.
The investigation could be a stepping stone towards another type of reform,such as tax”, Cox said.
The ACCC’s preliminary report is due at the beginning of December next year, or says Engadget,while the final report won’t be released until June 2019 at the earliest. World News Facebook Google
Source: theweek.co.uk