Google Disputes Penalty

R500M: COMPETITION COMMISSION WANTS SA OUTLETS COMPENSATED

- Faizel Patel

'Digital platforms cannot replace journalism's role.'

Google will review the Competition Commission's report stating that it could be required to pay up to R500 million a year in compensation to South African media outlets, the search engine company says.

This is after the Competition Commission's Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry's provisional report found the tech giant guilty of anticompetitive practices.

The Competition Commission released a provisional report on Monday on the impact of digital platforms on traditional media.

This looks at how platforms like Google, YouTube and Facebook affect advertising revenues.

Google said it would study the report in detail but disagreed with the claim that it has taken disproportionate value from publishers.

In 2023, our products like Google Search and News generated an estimated R350 million in referral traffic value for South African publishers, while we earned less than R19 million from ads displayed next to news queries.