Media chiefs demand ‘urgent’ curb of big tech
Ten of Australia’s most powerful media executives and industry body chiefs have called on the Albanese government to establish new competition laws to stop big tech companies stifling rivals.
A year after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released a Digital Platforms Inquiry report saying it was concerned about “significant consumer and competition harms” caused by companies such as Google, Apple and Meta, media executives say the need for new laws is now “urgent”
“As is the case for many households, Australian businesses rely on the services provided by large digital platforms such as Google and Meta,” the executives say in a two-page letter to Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.
L-R: ABC managing director David Anderson, Nine Entertainment CEO Mike Sneesby, Seven West Media CEO James Warburton and Paramount ANZ chief content officer Beverley McGarvey.
“But as the ACCC has found, in many digital platform services markets, Google and Meta have achieved levels of market dominance that provides them both the incentive and the opportunity to behave anti-competitively to leverage that market power and to insulate themselves from the emergence of competitors.”
Examples of anticompetitive behaviour the ACCC called out included so-called “self-preferencing”, such as Google putting its own products first in search results. When searching for a popular TV show on Google, for example, it can direct consumers to its own video sharing platform YouTube first, without pointing out the program is also available on free-to-air television.
The ACCC also pointed to Apple and Google demanding large commissions for purchases in apps, and likewise Google forcing advertisers to
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