Digital Updates – 2019

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is conducting a study on whether Google and Facebook’s market power has stifled competition in the digital market. CMA’s interim report supports the finding that the duopoly dominates the digital advertising market, depriving ... Read More

The Australian government will implement several of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recommendations to increase competition and mitigate digital platforms’ market power, giving news media companies a chance to address the power imbalance. Notably, the Australian government will ... Read More

This week, Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) announced their co-sponsorship of the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act” (JCPA), known as the Safe Harbor Bill. The JCPA was introduced in the Senate (S. 1700) in June, while a ... Read More

Following reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had requested the removal of broad immunities for online platforms from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the Speaker noted on December 10 that the protections would not be removed from the agreement ... Read More

On December 6, the News Media Alliance submitted comments with the California Attorney General on the AG’s proposed rules to implement the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that will go into effect on January 1, 2020. The CCPA will limit ... Read More

On November 20, a group of French media companies filed an official complaint with the country’s competition regulator over Google’s refusal to pay for rights to display news content. The complaint comes months after France became the first country to ... Read More

On Nov. 14, the News Media Alliance published an analysis on the impact to Spanish news publishers of the closure of Google News in Spain in 2014. Opponents of the European Union’s recently-adopted Publishers’ Right have used Spain’s experience with ... Read More

A number of Attorneys General are expanding their antitrust investigation of Google to include the company’s search practices and their Android operations, according to reports. The investigation, which includes 50 Attorneys General representing 48 states, the District of Columbia, and ... Read More

On November 6, California’s Attorney General announced that he had opened an investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices, but that the platform had not been cooperating with his office in the investigation. The AG filed a lawsuit against Facebook for documents ... Read More

On November 1, five senators — John Thune (R-SD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Mark Warner (D-VA) — introduced the Filter Bubble Transparency Act. The bill would require that online companies that collect data from ... Read More

On October 25, Facebook introduced Facebook News to some users in the United States. The News Tab will offer a new way for users to access news content on the platform, allowing users to control and personalize the news they ... Read More

On October 23, Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated during a congressional hearing that the company would be launching its News Tab later in the week. The company spokesperson later confirmed that the new initiative to support high-quality journalism ... Read More