Australia threatens tech companies with 2.25 percent tax if they don’t pay publishers
- Reference: 1777360824
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/28/australia_news_bargaining_incentive/
- Source link:
The Land Down Under floated the scheme as a replacement for the 2021 [1]News Media Bargaining Code that put a nominal value on links to news content shared on social media, and strongly suggested the likes of Google and Meta to negotiate with local publishers to agree on fee to secure permission to share links. If tech companies didn’t come to the table, they faced forced arbitration.
During negotiations, Meta decided it would not allow its users to share links to news stories in Australia. The social media giant later relented in Australia and struck deals with some local publishers.
[2]
But when [3]Canada introduced a similar law , Meta stopped allowing its local users to share news links to make itself ineligible for payments – and maintains that position to this day.
[4]
[5]
As deals struck under the News Media Bargaining Code came up for renewal, Meta said it wouldn’t play ball.
So Australia’s government changed the rules.
[6]
The new game is called the News Bargaining Incentive and, per draft [7]legislation that dropped on Tuesday, requires any social media outfit that allows access to news content and makes AU$250 million a year in Australia ($180 million) to cough up 2.25 percent of local revenue.
Eligible entities can offset that tax by doing a deal to pay Australian media companies to fund content creation, or for the right to use their content.
The proposed scheme applies to any media organization with revenue of AU$150,000 ($106,000) or more, a dominant purpose of serving Australian audiences, and meets professional standards tests including offering a mechanism for complaints. The Register is not eligible to participate.
[8]
Australian media companies, like many elsewhere around the world, were slow to erect paywalls or innovate to protect their classified advertising businesses. The likes of Google and Meta quickly ate their lunches in most categories of advertising because they understood the internet, and regulators mostly missed the shift from one concentrated pool of providers to the new online order.
At the time of the transition, Australia’s major media companies were mostly locally-owned. Tech companies, by contrast, shipped profits offshore while paying little tax.
As headcounts at Australian media organizations fell sharply, politicians noticed the money flow and also started to worry that the fourth estate had become so threadbare it could not fill its roles as a public interest watchdog and disseminator of professionally produced and curated information.
The News Media Bargaining Code was Australia’s first attempt at finding new ways to fund journalism, and informed other nations as they implemented similar measures.
Now Australia has produced the new idea of the News Bargaining Incentive, and a plan to introduce it for the financial year ending June 30th – just two months from now if the bill passes with unusual speed.
[9]Surprise! Big Tech has been a bit rubbish at enforcing Australia’s kids social media ban
[10]Summer in Australia means beers, beaches, and bork
[11]Brit lands invite-only Aussie visa after uncovering vuln in government systems
[12]Reddit sues Australia to exempt itself from kids social media ban
Big Tech campaigned hard against Australia’s effort in this field, but has kept its powder dry as the new deadline approaches.
Australia has been a thorn in Big Tech’s side of late, with its ban on allowing children under 16 to access social media attracting attention – and imitators – around the world.
Despite its flaws – most teens say they can still access social media – the ban is popular Down Under because many people believe social media companies behave irresponsibly and have therefore lost their social licenses.
Australia is therefore offering Big Tech the chance to make a government-approved contribution to the nation’s health and perhaps emerge looking less like villains.
Let’s see if they rise to the challenge. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/23/facebook_and_australia_do_a_deal/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afCFJ1IHIJF6HoqmcinuiwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/06/canada_news_legislation/?_gl=1*1eusp1r*_ga*MTI0MjE1MDMxNS4xNzE5OTg5NTg5*_ga_JXW44Y23NM*czE3NzczNTM4OTckbzIxNzckZzEkdDE3NzczNTY3NjAkajYwJGwwJGgw
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afCFJ1IHIJF6HoqmcinuiwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33afCFJ1IHIJF6HoqmcinuiwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afCFJ1IHIJF6HoqmcinuiwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://consult.treasury.gov.au/c2026-763377
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33afCFJ1IHIJF6HoqmcinuiwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/australian_social_media_ban_enforcement_report/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/06/supermarket_bork_australia/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/02/brit_security_australia_visa/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/reddit_sues_australia_social_ban/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
While I can agree with your comment, it is not relevant to the story. The story is about Australia, not the USA.
When did Meta become Australian? I missed that one.
"Meta packed up its toys and went home"
I wish Meta could go and put itself in a grave.
And that alien construct El Zuck with it.
State sanctioned robbery
While I'm no fan of antisocial media companies, this smells like a shake-down to me.
If old media companies can't make money because nobody wants to read or listen to their poor journalism, robbing companies who enable people to share information with each other to prop them up is trying to fix one wrong with another.
But, the Aussies have hardly shown themselves to have legislators who even understand the first thing about technology.
“The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia."
Re: State sanctioned robbery
Definitely Πi 2
Re: State sanctioned robbery
I'm going to set up a news website then. And my content will come from existing news websites, I will simply republish the articles that have been researched and written by the journalists that they pay.
After all if nobody wants to read or listen to them...... why would they read or listen to the same news or content on my website?
Re: State sanctioned robbery
"Aussies have hardly shown themselves to have legislators who even understand the first thing about technology."
I don't imagine anyone here (AU) would dispute that beyond pointing out the "about technology" is overly generous - but whose legislators do ?
Unlikely that any legislators understand any mathematics beyond a four function calculator or (feral) abacus. But the issue of foreign multinationals operating in AU, generating significant revenue from those operations, and not paying significant AU tax on those revenues, doesn't require advanced number theory to understand. Such tax minimisation is a problem for which other nations are also seeking solutions.
Advertising is one source of revenue that was available for taxation when local print and broadcast media dominated and was lost in advertising's migration to foreign internet media. The successful application the proposed tax might embolden other nations to apply a more general digital service tax or even reform the whole transnational taxation regime.
Possibly the opening blows in a melee involving tariff tsunamis and other weapons of mad destruction.
Meanwhile in Canada
Several years ago Canada insisted that Meta/Facebook pay their fair share. Since then Facebook will not allow you to post a link to any story in any major news publication.
What makes this more frightening, is that over the last couple of decades most major Canadian news organizations have been bought out and consolidated by large American investors, with newsrooms being decimated, and news coverage becoming very pointedly right wing.
Small towns all over the country no longer have any local news outlets, and rely solely on Facebook for news.
It is a disaster.
Re: Meanwhile in Canada
You know a complaint is bullshit when it includes the phrase “pay their fair share”
The newspapers ran their businesses very badly and a competitor took over. Oh well.
Re: Meanwhile in Canada And Across The World
There is a problem when the big thug with a stick and too much money decides, they want your money, the big thug wins until they are disarmed and defanged. The last two are challenging tasks for anyone to take on especially when the bully has other big bullies to back them up. I would not trust Facebook for instructions on escaping a burning building in the event of a fire. I am not a user and have nothing to do with its silly ranting. A newspaper subscription gives me news, rather than trusting the fantasies of antisocial media. You are correct there is now a dearth of local news sources where I live, not in Canada, a few free sheet pamphlets are generated in some areas, but these tend to be weekly or more usually monthly, so lack any real news. Paper news has been dying for years and failed to find a substitute paying route to eyeballs, it was always paid for by advertisers and one they melted away the papers died. The 'local news' site that I do watch is full of news of people scammed by some Facebook or other bit of antisocial dross, I have to wonder why so many people keep not so much falling, as leaping into am obviously freshly dog hole.
Meta packed up its toys and went home
Remind me again why this is a bad thing?
I think the Americans from the top down need to clue in to one simple fact:
The independent nations of the world do not exist solely for you to rape and plunder.
And then they need to do one simple thing:
Fuck off with their profit-mongering and surveillance state nonsense. The world neither wants nor needs your federal government's plan for a fascist overreach of the global population, and we reject you and it outright as any kind of "overlords" of the internet.
'