What are the allegations against Google by the NBDA?

Source: The post is based on the article “What are the allegations against Google by the NBDA?” published in The Hindu on 12^th October 2022.

What is the News?

Recently News Broadcasters and Digital Association (NBDA) approached the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against search-engine operator Google. The NBDA said that Google had deprived them of their justifiable revenue acquired from news dissemination on the tech giant’s platforms.

Note: The complaint would be clubbed with similar cases earlier filed by the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) and the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA).

How search engines are the first port of call for information online?

As per the NBDA, Google’s search engine commands a 94% market share in the country.

The traditional newspaper industry in India has sustained itself on a business model wherein advertising accounts for two-thirds of its total revenue. With online proliferation, there is an increased reliance of news publishers on digital ad revenues, and in turn, tech-based companies.

More than half of the total traffic on news websites is routed through Google. The search engine determines which news websites would be prioritised in search queries. This has made search engines the first port of call for information online.

What are the key allegations against Google?

Google has been found to be dominant in both markets of relevance to digital publishers. A news website sells advertising spaces on its platform through ad exchanges. Google also operates a platform that manages a publisher’s sale of online ads and tools to purchase display ad space.

But, Google has not compensated news publishers for their contribution to (Google’s various) platforms and has engaged in practices to bolster its monopoly in the space. The website publishers receive only 51% of the advertisement revenue.

On the other hand, Google says that the revenues accrued are spent towards running “a complex and evolving business” such as maintaining data centres, further technological investments, enabling innovations that increase publisher revenue and maximising advertiser return on investment.

How do other countries view and manage Google and News publishers?

The European Publishers Council (EPC) filed an anti-trust complaint against Google with the European Commission. The EPC also complained about Google’s “ad tech stranglehold” over press publishers.

Australia introduced the ‘Media Bargaining Code’ to address the imbalance. The code requires news outlets to negotiate commercial deals individually or collectively with Facebook and Google with violations calling for civil penalties of up to $10 million. The tech firms would also have to give media outlets notice when they change search algorithms that may affect publishers’ content.