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Newspapers To Bid For Antitrust Exemption To Tackle Google and Facebook (cnbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the band-together dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The news industry is to band together to seek a limited antitrust exemption from Congress in an effort to fend off growing competition from Facebook and Google. Traditional competitors including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as a host of smaller print and online publications, will temporarily set aside their differences this week and appeal to federal lawmakers to let them negotiate collectively with the technology giants to safeguard the industry. Antitrust laws traditionally prevent companies from forming such an alliance which could see them becoming over-dominant in a particular sector. However, the media companies will be hoping that Congress will look favorably on a temporary exemption, particularly giving the recent clampdown on the technology industry which saw Google slapped with a $2.7 billion antitrust fine. The campaign is led by newspaper industry trade group News Media Alliance and it is intended to help the industry collaborate in order to regain market share from Facebook and Google, which have been swooping in on newspapers' distribution and advertising revenues. The two companies currently command 70 percent of the $73 billion digital advertising industry in the U.S., according to new research from the Pew Research Centre. Meanwhile, U.S. newspaper ad revenue in 2016 was $18 billion from $50 billion a decade ago.

9 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Allowing an excemption to antitrust rules is dangerous and stupid. If you have a problem with a powerful established competitor that is abusing a market dominant position, then seek antitrust against them. Dont abuse antitrust yourself.

    But hey, maybe they know something the rest of us dont-- like how absurd it is to expect the congress cronies to actually give teeth to the laws on the books.

    1. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Sure, if Google is a monopoly. Or if Facebook is. Of course they aren't. Not taken alone anyway and nobody is claiming that they are one company.

      In this case I think the news industry needs to put on their big boy pants and realize that nothing guarantees them that they can keep making profits on an old business model forever. It seems that any industry that gets entrenched (music, news, lots more examples) thinks that they then should have a right to keep profiting even if society or technology, etc. moves on. In this case, adapt or die. It seems ingrained that we always attempt to protect ourselves. I imagine when my company is pushed out by newer stuff / better stuff I will probably be the same way - "there outta be a law!". But from outside it seems silly to think that the current news industry should have a legal recourse to continue an old school profit train.

    2. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, this is pretty much just communism in its murkiest still-identifiable form.

      Essentially, Facebook and Google deliver information. People on Facebook need stuff to talk about, so they talk about common interests. This includes ... news. Google, of course, can connect anything you're asking about to the news that's probably why you're asking about it.

      Now the newspapers aren't hot items anymore. People aren't buying newspapers, just like they're not buying physical CDs. In a generation, newspapers won't be a thing. There's all this online news from the likes of CNN and Washington Post, and it's being shared and commented on across all these Facebook feeds; you can't hold an argument in comments with strangers and friends on newspaper.

      So the newspapers essentially are asking Congress to step in and change the market place. They want the government to decide what businesses should exist and, specifically, how people should get their news.

      In our case, the government has limited power to try and shore up one industry and cut down another. The newspaper industry, of course, wants them to use what power they have to shore up newspapers and cut down online news. Part of that is the power to selectively exempt the newspaper industry from regulations which preserve capitalism from conglomerates of colluding market players who would otherwise work to shut out others from the market.

      --
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    3. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except that is the issue, Google and Facebook are not abusing their positions against the rest of the news industry. The rest of the industry is pissed that google doesn't shove eyeballs at their pay-walled news sites. https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

    4. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In this case I think the news industry needs to put on their big boy pants and realize that nothing guarantees them that they can keep making profits on an old business model forever. It seems that any industry that gets entrenched (music, news, lots more examples) thinks that they then should have a right to keep profiting even if society or technology, etc. moves on. In this case, adapt or die. It seems ingrained that we always attempt to protect ourselves. I imagine when my company is pushed out by newer stuff / better stuff I will probably be the same way - "there outta be a law!". But from outside it seems silly to think that the current news industry should have a legal recourse to continue an old school profit train.

      Well put.

      How many other industries have been turned upside down due to new technology coming along to supplant it. I'm sure the wagon wheel makers would like to put a stop to the automobile, not to mention the stagecoach makers, and horse breeders. Oh, and the buggy whip makers. Typewriter manufacturers and repair men would like to put a stop to those newfangled computers too. Not to mention adding machine makers, who are in hot water with abacus builders. And the vacuum tube producers want to put a stop to transistors as well.

    5. Re:Better idea: punish Facebook and Google. by DarkOx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Arguably, the newspapers are more monopolies than the tech companies. If you want major newspaper that covers Washington, and national news you have the WaPO to choose from, the NYT isn't really a substitute.

      On the other hand if you don't like Google, there is Bing, and its an almost perfectly like substitute. If you don't like facebook there are a number of other conversation platforms like Disqus. While not perfect replacements they are social media alternatives.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  2. Another idea... by Pollux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Newspapers still provide an important and valuable service to our society. They should be paid for it. Companies like Google and Facebook shouldn't be harvesting content for free. Setup a licensing deal with Google, Facebook, and any other meta-news distributors. Newspapers get money, and they continue to provide their services.

    They should realize by now that the paradigm has shifted. People are consuming news content in new ways, and the best thing to do is adapt. Music's new distribution is streaming. News should be the same.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion