Australian Inquiry Pushes for Major Changes on Platform Regulation.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has recommended sweeping changes to Australian law to address the power imbalance between digital platforms and media companies. These recommendations are contained in its final Digital Platforms Inquiry report, released on 26 July.
The report is here: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Digital%20platforms%20inquiry%20-%20final%20report.pdf
An important context is that there has been a significant shift in political sentiment towards the digital platforms. Senior Australian politicians are convinced that something needs to be done about the digital platforms extraordinary power (see Government response to report below).
The ACCC recommends that the digital platforms should be compelled to agree a Code of Conduct with media companies. The Code of Conduct will be registered with Australia’s media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority or ACMA.
Enforcement of these Codes of Conduct will be done by ACMA as they would have the power to:
‘Designate’ the specific digital platform companies that are required to prepare and submit a code
Impose a mandatory standard if the designated company does not submit a code within nine months of the ACMA designation
Require changes to a Code of Conduct prior to approval
Enforce registered codes, with investigative powers and the power to impose ‘large sanctions’ for breaches of the code
While the ACCC says that ACMA should be the body that ‘designates’ the companies required to submit a Code of Conduct, the ACCC gives more than a hint on who should be designated, saying the ‘most likely candidates’ include Google and Facebook and ‘a possibly candidate’ is Apple News (p. 255).
The ACCC recommends that the ACMA release guidelines on what should be in such a Code of Conduct. The ACCC provides guidance in their report on the minimum requirements of such a Code of Conduct. It says it should contain provisions covering at least the following:
The sharing of data with news media businesses
The early notification of changes to the ranking or display of news content
That the digital platforms actions will not impede news media business opportunities to monetise content
Where the digital platforms obtains value from news media content, it will fairly negotiate how revenue should be shared
The duration of the Code of Conduct will be proposed by the designated digital platform and be subject to approval by ACMA.
Australian Government response
The Government media release in response to the ACCC report said this:
The Government recognises that news and journalism is an important public good and that with Digital Platforms collecting and using large volumes of personal information, consumers need to be properly informed about the data collected, how it is being used and by who.
It therefore accepts the ACCC’s overriding conclusion that there is a need for reform - to better protect consumers, improve transparency, recognise power imbalances and ensure that substantial market power is not used to lessen competition in media and advertising services markets.
Next Steps
The Government media release said this on next steps:
The precise form of the reforms and a detailed Government response to the report’s recommendations will be informed by a public consultation process, led by Treasury and involving the Department of Communications and the Arts as well as the Attorney-General’s Department.
The consultation process will run for 12 weeks and will enable all interested stakeholders to provide feedback on the report and its implementation. Following these consultations, the Government intends to finalise its response to the report by the end of the year.
The media release is here: https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/media-releases/joint-media-release-release-of-the-accc-digital-platforms-report
