anticompetitive Archives - News/Media Alliance https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/tag/anticompetitive/ Tue, 05 Sep 2023 20:27:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.2 Global Publishing, Journalism Organizations Unite to Release Comprehensive Global Principles for Artificial Intelligence (AI) https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/release-global-publishing-journalism-organizations-unite-to-release-comprehensive-global-principles-for-artificial-intelligence-ai/ Wed, 06 Sep 2023 12:00:36 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=14067 Today 26 organizations representing thousands of creative professionals around the world, including news, entertainment, magazine, and book publishing companies and the academic publishing sector, released Global Principles on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – Today 26 organizations representing thousands of creative professionals around the world, including news, entertainment, magazine, and book publishing companies and the academic publishing sector, released Global Principles for Artificial Intelligence (AI). A first of their kind, these pioneering Global Principles provide guidance for the development, deployment, and regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and applications to ensure business opportunities and innovation can thrive within an ethical and accountable framework. The Global Principles for AI are aimed at ensuring publishers’ continued ability to create and disseminate quality content, while facilitating innovation and the responsible development of trustworthy AI systems.

Addressing critical dimensions relating to intellectual property, transparency, accountability, quality and integrity, fairness, safety, design, and sustainable development, the Global Principles for AI mark an unprecedented collaboration that safeguards the interests of content creators, publishers, and consumers alike.

In the Principles, the organizations call for the responsible development and deployment of AI systems and applications, stating that these new tools must only be developed in accordance with established principles and laws that protect publishers’ intellectual property, brands, consumer relationships, and investments. The Principles state explicitly that AI systems’ “indiscriminate misappropriation of our intellectual property is unethical, harmful, and an infringement of our protected rights.”

News/Media Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey stated, “These Global AI Principles demonstrate the widespread agreement of publishers around the world that their intellectual property, which is the product of significant investments they have made in providing quality journalistic and creative content, should be recognized and respected. AI systems are only as good as the content they use to train them, and therefore developers of generative AI technology must recognize and compensate publishers accordingly for the tremendous value their content contributes to the development of these systems.”

Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint stated, “For decades, our member companies have pursued opportunities to bring trusted news and entertainment to new platforms and new distribution channels enabled by the internet. We know from experience that principles like these are necessary to make certain those opportunities continue to proliferate and serve as a guidepost for businesses and policymakers who are wrestling with the ethical and legal questions surrounding AI.”

Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director of the European Publishers Council stated, “The Global Principles for AI pave the way for a powerful convergence of innovation and ethical development of AI. We invite regulators to establish legal frameworks which boost innovation and create new business opportunities, while ensuring that AI develops in a way that is responsible and sustainable for the publishing and journalism sectors in full respect of their intellectual property rights.”

Among other things, the Global AI Principles stipulate that developers, operators, and deployers of AI systems should:

  • Respect intellectual property rights protecting the organizations’ investments in original content.
  • Leverage efficient licensing models that can facilitate innovation through training of trustworthy and high-quality AI systems.
  • Provide granular transparency to allow publishers to enforce their rights where their content is included in training datasets.
  • Clearly attribute content to the original publishers of the content.
  • Recognise publishers’ invaluable role in generating high-quality content for training, and also for surfacing and synthesizing.
  • Comply with competition laws and principles and ensure that AI models are not used for anti-competitive purposes.
  • Promote trusted and reliable sources of information and ensure that AI generated content is accurate, correct and complete.
  • Not misrepresent original works.
  • Respect the privacy of users that interact with them and fully disclose the use of their personal data in AI system design, training, and use.
  • Align with human values and operate in accordance with global laws.

The full Global AI Principles, which can be found online, elaborate on each of the points above in greater detail.

Organizations signing onto the Global AI Principles include:

  • AMI – Colombian News Media Association
  • Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas Argentinas (Adepa)
  • Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers
  • Associação Nacional de Jornais (Brazilian Newspaper Association) (ANJ)
  • Czech Publishers’ Association
  • Danish Media Association
  • Digital Content Next
  • European Magazine Media Association
  • European Newspaper Publishers’ Association
  • European Publishers Council
  • FIPP
  • Grupo de Diarios América
  • Inter American Press Association
  • Korean Association of Newspapers
  • Magyar Lapkiadók Egyesülete (Hungarian Publishers’ Association)
  • NDP Nieuwsmedia
  • News/Media Alliance
  • News Media Association
  • News Media Canada
  • News Media Europe
  • News Media Finland
  • News Publishers’ Association
  • Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association)
  • Professional Publishers Association
  • STM
  • World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA)

The Global AI Principles can be found on the News/Media Alliance website here.

The Principles are open to future signatories.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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News/Media Alliance Releases New Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Principles https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/release-news-media-alliance-releases-new-generative-artificial-intelligence-ai-principles/ Thu, 20 Apr 2023 14:38:25 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=13698 Today the News/Media Alliance released new AI Principles that provide overarching guidance for generative artificial intelligence (GAI) systems’ use of journalistic and creative content.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – Today the News/Media Alliance released new AI Principles that provide overarching guidance for generative artificial intelligence (GAI) systems’ use of journalistic and creative content. The Principles cover issues with respect to GAI developers’ use of members’ content related to intellectual property, transparency, accountability, fairness, safety, and design and apply to all content, including text, images, audiovisual and all other formats.

The News/Media Alliance represents over 2,000 print and digital news and magazine media companies, from small, local outlets to national and international publications read around the world. Every day, these publishers invest in producing high-quality creative content that is engaging, informative, trustworthy, accurate and reliable. They not only make significant economic contributions in this content, but they also play a crucial role in educating and informing our communities, ensuring a strong democracy and economy.

“The Principles emphasize that emerging technologies such as AI must continue to respect publishers’ intellectual property (IP), brands, reader relationships, and investments made in creating quality journalistic and creative content,” stated News/Media Alliance Executive Vice President and General Counsel Danielle Coffey. “Publishers must be fairly compensated for the tremendous value their content contributes to the development of generative AI technology. It’s a simple exchange of value.”

The News/Media Alliance’s Principles stipulate that GAI developers and deployers must negotiate with publishers for the right to use their content in any of the following manners:

  • Training: Including publishers’ content in datasets and using it for GAI system training and testing.
  • Surfacing: The serving of publishers’ content in response to user inputs, possibly including a cover note generated by the GAI system of what is contained in the surfaced content.
  • Synthesizing: Summaries, explanations, analyses etc. of source content in response to a query.

Among other things, the AI Principles outline the need for GAI developers to obtain explicit permission for use of publishers’ intellectual property, and publishers should have the right to negotiate for fair compensation for use of their IP by these developers.

The Alliance has been advocating for the passage of the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA), which would allow publishers to negotiate collectively with the Big Tech platforms for fair compensation for use of their content, including use for AI purposes. Currently, publishers do not have the ability to negotiate these deals on their own, as the dominant tech platforms capture the majority of U.S. digital ad revenue, leaving publishers with little to reinvest in the production of high-quality journalism. The bill, which nearly passed into law in 2022, was reintroduced in the Senate in March 2023 and has strong bipartisan support.

Coffey added, “The tech platforms clearly cannot be trusted to self-regulate and instead, are increasing their anticompetitive behavior to the detriment of local journalism. We must ensure that value is rightfully returned to the creators of quality journalism, which in turn will be reinvested in providing the content that our country wants, needs and depends on to stay informed.”

The AI Principles can be found on the Alliance website here.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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Economic Liberties Event: Anti-Monopoly Summit https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/economic-liberties-event-anti-monopoly-summit/ Thu, 13 Apr 2023 21:44:46 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=13683 The News/Media Alliance is happy to be partnering with Economic Liberties on the Anti-Monopoly Summit. This Summit will bring together the growing anti-monopoly movement to build power and engage with senior policymakers. 

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When: Thursday, May 4, 2023, 8:15 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. EDT 

Where: Renaissance Hotel, Washington, DC

Get tickets

The News/Media Alliance is happy to be partnering with Economic Liberties on the Anti-Monopoly Summit. We invite our Alliance members to attend the Summit on May 4, 2023 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington D.C. This Summit will bring together the growing anti-monopoly movement in a marquee one-day conference to build power and engage with senior policymakers from across the country.

Description:

The anti-monopoly movement has swelled in prominence in recent years. Historic appointments at the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and the White House, alongside bipartisan leadership in Congress and President Biden’s July 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the U.S. launched a successful all-of-government agenda to arrest corporate power.

For more information, visit antimonopolysummit.org.

Keynote speakers include:

  • Amy Klobuchar, Senator for the State of Minnesota
  • Lael Brainard, Director, National Economic Council
  • Lina Khan, Chair, Federal Trade Commission
  • Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice
  • Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board
  • Summer Lee, Representative for the State of Pennsylvania
  • Doha Mekki, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice
  • Elizabeth Wilkins, Chief of Staff to the Chair and Director, Office of Policy and Planning, Federal Trade Commission
  • Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos
  • More speakers coming soon.

Organizations supporting the event include Common Future, Demand Progress, Digital Content Next, Future of Music Coalition, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, National Community Pharmacists Association, National Grocers Association, News/Media Alliance, Small Business Majority, Economic Security Project, Kauffman Foundation, Omidyar Network.

Get tickets

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Statement: News/Media Alliance Signs Creative Industry Principles on Artificial Intelligence https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/statement-news-media-alliance-signs-creative-industry-principles-on-artificial-intelligence/ https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/statement-news-media-alliance-signs-creative-industry-principles-on-artificial-intelligence/#respond Thu, 16 Mar 2023 21:30:45 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=13594 Today, the News/Media Alliance signed on to principles developed by a coalition of creative industry organizations, the Human Artistry CampAIgn, outlining high-level principles that should govern the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications and human-created content and creativity.

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Today, the News/Media Alliance signed on to principles developed by a coalition of creative industry organizations, the Human Artistry CampAIgn, outlining high-level principles that should govern the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications and human-created content and creativity. The principles address issues such as use of copyrighted content, transparency, and inclusion of the creative industries in the policy making process. The document was launched during a South by Southwest (SXSW) panel “Welcome to the Machine: Art in the Age of A.I.

Danielle Coffey, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the Alliance, stated: “As AI applications become more prevalent in our society, we need to establish clear principles that govern the responsible development and use of these new technologies and applications. We are proud to join this coalition of like-minded organizations and will continue to advocate diligently for regulations and law to protect creators with respect to AI in the same manner it does with respect to other technologies and industries.”

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OPI Event: “Renewing the Democratic Republic” https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/opi-event-renewing-the-democratic-republic/ Fri, 10 Feb 2023 14:48:24 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=13538 Join the Open Markets Institute, News/Media Alliance, and other co-hosts for a keynote speech from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on how far our antimonopoly movement has come and the fights that lay ahead to rebuild our democracy. 

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Photo credti: tomwachs / e+ via Getty Images

When: Wednesday, February 15, 2023, 9:30 a.m. EST – this event has passed

Where: Marriott Marquis, Washington, DC

Join the Open Markets Institute, News/Media Alliance, and other co-hosts for a keynote speech from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on how far our antimonopoly movement has come and the fights that lay ahead to rebuild our democracy.

Description:

Warren’s pivotal 2016 speech on antimonopoly at another Open Markets event helped spur policymakers into action. Because of her work and the work of our broader movement, more recognize that workers’ rights, racial justice, climate change, freedom of media and journalism, digital platforms and privacy abuses, artistic liberty, industrial policy, economic resiliency and supply chain issues, peace and security, and our very democracy, are all set back by an extreme concentration of corporate power. And all can be tremendously improved by reining in corporate monopolies.

Hosted by the Open Markets Institute, Senator Warren’s remarks are part of an important, day-long conference that will explore the power of antimonopoly principles to renew American democracy, strengthen our economy, & construct a more peaceful & sustainable world.

Other featured speakers include:

  • Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, who recently brought a critically important suit against Google’s monopolization of digital advertising;
  • Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and the president of PEN America, whose book “Homeland Elegies” describes how monopolists bulldozed American society;
  • Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, who takes on the airline monopolies daily on behalf of her union’s 50K members;
  • and many more

Organizations supporting the event include Color of Change, the Financial Times, Public Citizen, as well as Americans for Financial Reform, Accountable Tech, Demand Progress, Economic Security Project, Fight Corporate Monopolies and the American Economic and Civil Liberties Project, Free Press, Future of Music Coalition, Groundwork Collaborative, News/Media Alliance, Public Knowledge, and the Revolving Door Project. 

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Statement: News/Media Alliance Applauds Department of Justice for Filing Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/statement-news-media-alliance-applauds-department-of-justice-for-filing-antitrust-lawsuit-against-google/ https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/statement-news-media-alliance-applauds-department-of-justice-for-filing-antitrust-lawsuit-against-google/#respond Tue, 24 Jan 2023 21:19:20 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=13486 Today the Department of Justice filed its highly anticipated antitrust lawsuit against Google for its dominance in advertising and violation of the Sherman Act. This monumental lawsuit is based on years of investigation and claims against the dominant monopoly.

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Today the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its highly anticipated antitrust lawsuit against Google for its dominance in advertising and violation of the Sherman Act. This monumental lawsuit is based on years of investigation and claims against the dominant monopoly. Alleging instances of “tying” its products, Google’s ad exchange and ad server, has a detriment to those who produce the content on what was once a free and open internet.

“This marks an important day in our history where a dominant monopoly is being charged for blatantly anticompetitive behavior in the digital advertising market. This behavior impacts consumers’ data, prices, and the quality of information they receive, while journalism struggles to provide valuable and critical content that informs and enriches communities across the country,” said News/Media Alliance Executive Vice President & General Counsel, Danielle Coffey.

For many years, the News/Media Alliance has sounded the alarm on this issue through testimony and written filings, including its white paper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism,” published in 2020 and revised in September 2022, which substantiates Google’s dominance in the marketplace, including member news publisher accounts of anticompetitive practices. Google’s take from publishers is up to 70 percent of every advertising dollar received. This has a significant impact on what news publishers and magazines receive for their content.

Coffey continued, “Along with this antitrust lawsuit, legislation like the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA) is sorely needed to address these marketplace imbalances. The lawsuit draws a direct nexus between the anticompetitive practices and those who are harmed, notably the free press. We applaud the DOJ and various states that have filed this historic case during a time of critical importance to our industry and others impacted by these practices.”

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Statement: White Paper Shows Google’s Ongoing Use and Abuse of News Content, Why We Need the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/statement-white-paper-shows-googles-ongoing-use-and-abuse-of-news-content-why-we-need-the-journalism-competition-preservation-act/ Tue, 06 Sep 2022 14:53:12 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=13012 The News/Media Alliance published an extensive research paper in which countless news publishers were interviewed and detailed how Google has used and abused news content over the course of several years.

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The News/Media Alliance published an extensive research paper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism,” in which countless news publishers were interviewed and detailed how Google has used and abused news content over the course of several years through wielding their dominant position to strong-arm news publishers into giving away their content, all while Google profits from it. New revelations include anticompetitive behavior among and between Google and Facebook to further cement their market dominance.

Like most industries, news media outlets have made business decisions impacting revenue and the business landscape. Not all of those decisions have paid off.  One such decision was made almost twenty years ago to allow news content to be used on search and social platforms when the value exchange was fair, and traffic produced revenue through advertising. However, today, that value exchange is nearly nonexistent. It has been reported that 65 percent of users stay within the walled gardens and do not click through. And when few do click through, the ad tech tax is imposed, where the platforms take up to 70 percent of every digital advertising dollar because they also dominate the ad tech ecosystem, which feeds off the data collected inside their products and across the web. There is no longer a fair exchange of value, and no one publisher alone can alter this dynamic.

The White Paper outlines several ways in which Google uses news content to its advantage – and to news publishers’ detriment – across its products and services:

  • The use of news content through AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), Google Discover, Google News app, Google Assistant, and Search have become a “walled garden” in which publishers and consumers are increasingly forced or encouraged to stay.
  • Evidence that AMP, in which users read articles served by Google, benefits the platform to the detriment of news publishers who lose advertising revenue, reader data, and subscribers in comparison to organic search.
  • Terms of Use are exclusionary and anticompetitive whereby consenting to the use of content for one product irrevocably binds the publisher to other products and services, some that directly compete with news publishers’ offerings.
  • New evidence presented to the courts of anticompetitive practices around “header bidding” – an auctioning tool that competes against Google, producing a higher payout for publishers – was discouraged by Google as an intentional move to improve its financial gain in advertising auctions.
  • Revelations that Facebook substantially curtailed its use of header bidding in return for Google giving Facebook a leg up in publishers’ web display and developers in app ad auctions, allocating a portion of the wins to Facebook and helping Facebook’s ad network, FAN, beat the competition.

As the Senate markup of the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA) approaches (the Senate text was released in late August and it was listed to the Senate Judiciary Committee agenda for markup on September 8), critics of the bill have referred to it as a way to “prop up an industry that has largely failed to address its business problems” unrelated to the platforms. The White Paper proves this is not the case. If the platforms were required to come to the table and negotiate with news publishers for fair compensation for use of their content, as the JCPA specifies, it would address at least one critical piece of the gross marketplace imbalance with the dominant platforms.

Danielle Coffey, Executive Vice President and General Counsel at the News/Media Alliance said, “Google extracts revenue from valuable news content by deliberately and systematically delivering personalized information to users to keep them within their walled gardens. This fuels their engine of scraping reader data to sell their information and target them with ads.” Coffey continued, “There remains little bargaining power and, as a result, news publishers are forced to consent to nearly unlimited uses of their content in exchange for scraps to cover the tremendous investments it takes to produce quality journalism. If this continues, the production of quality local news content will be irreparably harmed.”

In the White Paper, the Alliance recommends passage of the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act, which would allow news publishers to collectively negotiate for fair compensation from the tech platforms.

The White Paper can be found here.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

 

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White Paper: How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/copyright-white-paper/ Mon, 05 Sep 2022 19:59:11 +0000 http://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=10714 Updated: The News Media Alliance has produced a White Paper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism,” which outlines several of the ways in which Google uses news content to its advantage across its products and services.

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simpson33/iStock/Getty Images Plus via Getty Images

Updated September 5, 2022

The News Media Alliance has produced a White Paper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism.”

Download updated White Paper (September 2022) here.

About the White Paper

The White Paper is based on more than a year of interviews and consultations with many Alliance members about their experiences with Google products. It outlines several of the ways in which Google uses news content to its advantage across its products and services. The use of news content through AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), Google Discover, and the Google News app, as well as Search becoming more of a “walled garden” in which publishers and consumers are increasingly forced or encouraged to stay, has been systematically making use of news content to enhance Google’s bottom line. In exchange, because there is little bargaining power, news publishers are not receiving fair value for quality content.

Based on the conclusions reached in the White Paper, recommendations from the Alliance include:
  • Antitrust scrutiny through the current investigations by the DOJ and state Attorneys General and remedies that address the abuses and impacts on news publishers.
  • Passage of the safe harbor bill, also known as the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act, to allow news publishers to collectively negotiate for better business arrangements with the tech platforms.
  • Compensation mechanisms that properly account for the value that platforms receive through original news content provided by established news organizations.

The Alliance has submitted the White Paper to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for its investigation of Google’s anticompetitive behavior.

Resources

Click the links below to download the White Paper and related resources.

White Paper with Graphics:

This visually-friendly version of the White Paper includes seven new graphics created to help explain some of the concepts in the report.

White Paper with Graphics (PDF, June 2020)

Graphics:

Download and share the individual graphics from the White Paper. Corresponding text for each graphic from the White Paper is below.

For use on social media, please credit the News Media Alliance. Click on an image, then right-click and select “Save image as” to download.

PowerPoint Presentation:

Download our presentation (PDF) of the White Paper graphics for your use and sharing.

Download in PPT format (Note: Some fonts may not display properly)

 

 

Graphic 1: How Google Dominates the Online Marketplace 

From page 4 of the White Paper: AMP keeps users in Google’s ecosystem while creating several disadvantages for many news publishers – including making it more difficult in some cases to form direct relationships with their readers, reducing some publishers’ subscription conversion rates, limiting the use of interactive features in AMP articles, reducing some publishers’ ad revenues, and impairing their collection of certain user data.

Graphic 2: How Google Comes Between Newspapers and Users

From page 14 of the White Paper: At the most fundamental level, Google has placed itself in the middle of the relationship between the newspaper and its user. The user is no longer visiting the publisher’s website directly, but instead viewing a copy of the article hosted on Google’s servers. Further, Google controls the AMP elements of the format, its functions and capabilities, and encourages users to stay within the search results page, for example, by creating an H-scroll in the Top News carousels that seamlessly moves from one publisher to the next without ever leaving Google. As subscriptions become increasingly important in an era in which digital ad revenues pale in comparison to earlier revenues from print ads, having a separate proprietary format that does not easily foster direct relationships is even more problematic.

Graphic 3: AMP URL API Terms

From page 19 of the White Paper (text on page 18): In our view, the AMP URL API terms of use also amount to exclusionary and anticompetitive conduct. A news publication does not appear to have the ability to acquiesce in the use of its AMP content on Google mobile search, for example, while declining permission for use in the new (and free) Google News app, which may directly compete with a newspaper’s own app or another app licensed by the publisher. Further, the language is sufficiently broad and unclear as to raise the question whether it gives Google the right to use the content for free for other purposes, such as artificial intelligence, that supposedly “improve” the APIs (and may in turn reinforce Google’s market power). Moreover, the terms give Google the right to sub-license use of the content to third parties, including presumably for a license fee. Finally, the license is irrevocable; although a news entity can theoretically stop creating AMP pages for its publication and stop using Google’s AMP URL API (with all its negative consequences), Google’s right to use the content continues indefinitely for all earlier-posted AMP pages.

Graphic 4: The Price of Appearing on Google News

From page 24 of the White Paper: News publishers are required to grant Google vast and unclear rights to use the publishers’ news content. The required grant of rights to Google extends not only to Google News but for all “Google Services” – defined as any products, services or technology developed by Google from time to time. In short, as a price of having their content appear on the regular Google News website, a publisher apparently is not only required to participate in the Google News app, and any future version of the Google News app, but any product or service developed by Google in the future.

Graphic 5: Google: A Walled Garden

From page 29 of the White Paper: For many years, Google Search results consisted of simple blue links with only a headline and very short snippet from an article. Today, Google Search makes heavy use of premier news content, including high quality news photos. Google uses this content to enhance its own brand – especially in an era plagued by fake news – and earns substantial advertising revenues for aggregating content it did not create or fund.

Graphic 6: The Effect of Google’s Walled Garden

From page 30 of the White Paper: One growing concern for the news industry is the current length of snippets from their articles, which often can collectively provide ample information on any news story to satisfy the casual reader skimming the news. Google is able to use its role as the market dominant platform to pressure newspapers into providing “rich snippets” for search. If these rich snippets are not on properly optimized pages (meaning the publisher implemented Google dictated structured data and markup properly, and the images are of requisite quality and size), the newspaper is put at competitive disadvantage. As illustrated by the examples and screenshots detailed below, a second, broader concern is the format and wide range of content presented by Google on today’s search results pages, usually above the traditional headlines and links to news articles – changes which undoubtedly decrease the chances that a user will click on a news link. Many have quoted the stunning statistic that, “In June of 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google.com resulted in zero clicks. We’ve passed a milestone in Google’s evolution from search engine to walled-garden.”38 The situation is even more stark on mobile: in the past three years, “[o]rganic has fallen by almost 20%, while paid has nearly tripled and zero-click searches are up significantly. … Today … almost two-thirds [of mobile searches ended without a click.]”39

Graphic 7: Google Assistant Does Not Give Credit to Original Publisher

From page 36 of the White Paper: Google Assistant is but one of the growing “Voice-first” Google platforms.  The Google website states that, “If you search with the Google Assistant, featured snippets may also be read aloud.”42 The full extent of this practice is not known, but in a limited review the news publishers have certainly found examples. When Google Assistant provides an audio response, that audio response obviously does not contain any link to the original article.  In short, in that setting, the quid pro quo that supports any fair use defense is absent.

Additional Resources:

Plain White Paper (no graphics) (PDF, September 2022)

Alliance Letter to the Department of Justice (June 18, 2020)

Statement: White Paper Shows Google’s Ongoing Use and Abuse of News Content, Why We Need the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (September 6, 2022)

Press Release: Alliance Releases New White Paper Outlining Google’s Dominant Market Behavior, Harming of Journalism (June 18, 2020)

For more information:

Please contact Alliance Executive Vice President and General Counsel Danielle Coffey if you have any questions.

 

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UK CMA Launches an Investigation into Google’s Ad Tech Services https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/uk-cma-launches-an-investigation-into-googles-ad-tech-services/ Tue, 31 May 2022 18:21:54 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=13035 On May 26, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority announced they were launching an investigation into Google’s advertising technology practices to determine if the company was engaging in anticompetitive behavior.

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On May 26, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority announced they were launching an investigation into Google’s advertising technology practices to determine if the company was engaging in anticompetitive behavior. The investigation focuses on three parts of the ad tech chain: demand-side platforms, ad exchanges, and publisher ad servers. Google operates the largest service in each of the three parts of the ad tech stack. According to the CMA, the investigation will examine whether Google tried to limit the interoperability of its ad exchange with third-party publisher ad servers, imposed restrictive contractual requirements, or used its DSPs and publisher ad server to illegally favor its own ad exchange services. The investigation follows a previously announced investigation into Google and Meta’s “Jedi Blue” agreement, related to header bidding services, and the CMA’s market study into online platforms and digital advertising. Read more about the latest investigation here.

 

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Statement: News Media Alliance Applauds Introduction of Competition and Transparency Digital Advertising Act https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/statement-news-media-alliance-applauds-introduction-of-competition-and-transparency-digital-advertising-act/ https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/statement-news-media-alliance-applauds-introduction-of-competition-and-transparency-digital-advertising-act/#respond Wed, 25 May 2022 20:37:19 +0000 https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/?p=12501 The News Media Alliance applauds the introduction of the “Competition and Transparency Digital Advertising Act,” by Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). 

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The News Media Alliance applauds the introduction of the “Competition and Transparency Digital Advertising Act,” by Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).  While our priority is the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, we support the goal of Senator Lee’s bill to break up the ad market, ensure more transparency, create fiduciary duties to publishers, and make more data available to publishers. We look forward to working with the lead sponsors to ensure competition and transparency in digital advertising.

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