Google may have to pay publishers for their content. Facebook might, too

Sep 16, 2016
2 min read

Google may have to pay publishers for their content. Facebook might, too. WhatsApp could have to follow tougher telecom standards.

A new set of rules, expected to be unveiled by European Union officials on Wednesday, is likely to put new pressure on American tech companies.

Europe calls it consumer protection. Silicon Valley calls it protectionism.

In some ways, they are both right.

In a decade of sluggish growth, local lawmakers assert that these proposed changes will bring together the region’s national economies into a so-called single digital market.

The aim? To give the bloc’s roughly 500 million consumers unfettered access to services like movie streaming, online shopping and cloud computing, no matter where they live. At the same time, the proposals would force some of the world’s largest tech companies to comply with stringent competition, privacy and copyright rules.

For many executives from American tech companies, such plans, which will still take years to come into effect and which will be subject to intense lobbying, feel like another round of protectionism. And while Europe’s policy makers balk at these claims, the fact that Google, Facebook and Microsoft, among others, will be the most affected by the digital revamp has again highlighted how much Europeans rely on American tech when using digital services in their daily lives.

The plans to be announced by the Brussels-based European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, include:

■ Potentially giving publishers the right to charge Google and other internet companies, if they so choose, when they use online content from newspapers or magazines on news aggregation websites, like Google News. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter also could be affected. Similar rules have already been passed in Germany and Spain, but with little success.

■ Placing greater scrutiny on internet phone and messaging services like Facebook’s WhatsApp, which may require them to comply with tougher telecommunications standards that now apply only to traditional text messaging and voice calls. Telecom groups say these new services are similar to text messages and so should be regulatedunder the same rules. The tech companies believe they provide a different option for consumers and should not be encumbered with outdated regulation.