For more than a decade, the world’s largest news publishers, such as News Corp and Axel Springer, have attempted, mostly without success, to get Facebook and Google to pay the media companies for headlines and other news content that appears on the tech companies’ platforms. Now, the momentum is suddenly shifting in favor of the publishers.
Rep. David Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the House Antitrust Subcommittee, on Monday told The Information he plans to move ahead with bipartisan legislation that would boost publishers’ bargaining power in negotiations with tech companies. “This isn’t going to fix itself,” he said.