Google Willing To Pay IDR 14.8 Trillion For Quality News Content

JAKARTA - Google is willing to pay US $ 1 billion or around Rp.14.8 trillion to support the news industry. This investment is given to media companies who are willing to be part of the new Google News Showcase product.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said this fee was paid for helping media companies curate quality news content. This policy is aligned with emergency funding for local publishers to help with the impact of COVID-19 and the Digital Growth Program.

"The Google News Showcase is a new product that will benefit publishers and readers alike: It features the best newsroom editorial curation to provide readers with more insight into important news stories, and in the process, help publishers develop deeper relationships with their audiences," said Pichai on Google's official blog, Wednesday, October 7.

Pichai said that the News Showcase is different from other Google news products in that it relies on editorial choices made by each publisher about which news to show readers. This service is claimed to provide a different online news reading experience with quality journalistic content.

"The News Showcase builds on our existing news licensing program, which already pays publishers for quality journalism, and other news-related endeavors such as Subscribe with Google, Web Stories, and audio news. And it will give readers more context and perspective on important stories in the news and drive high-value traffic to publisher sites, "

Google News Showcase will be launched first in Germany and Brazil, which will then be rolled out to other countries. Later the news portal and it will appear on the Google News page on Android.

So far Google has signed deals with 200 media outlets in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, UK and Australia. Meanwhile India, Belgium and the Netherlands have entered the list of countries for expansion after other countries started operating.

The News Showcase Initiative program is Google's way of committing to give appreciation to journalists who present high-quality articles and news while struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is because the news presented by media companies is often shared via Google and Facebook for free.

Although the news went viral, in fact the media companies did not benefit from the articles published on the two platforms. This has led the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to publish a draft regulation that forces Facebook and Google to share revenue generated from news produced by the media.

The ACCC explained that the rules allow media companies and news agencies in Australia to get fair payment for journalist content published by digital platforms. Where based on the ACCC report, technology companies such as Google and Facebook generate revenues of more than 600 million US dollars a year.