Following similar moves in Australia and European Union, the Indian government is looking to make big tech majors such as Google, Meta, Apple, Twitter, and Amazon compensate Indian newspapers and digital news publishers for using their original content.

Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government plans to ensure the same through regulatory interventions, to be made possible through revisions to existing IT laws, reported Times of India.

Chandrasekhar told TOI that the market power being exercised by tech majors places Indian media companies at a disadvantage, and therefore the issue is being seriously examined in the context of new rules and laws. This is the first statement by the government on the matter, the report said.

Global digital and social media platforms reaped heavy dividends due to a boom in the use of smartphones and internet around the world; with soaring revenues and viewership. News publishers and media companies argue that this growth has partly been fuelled by the original content created and paid for by them.

The government is of the view that the proliferation of a select few tech names has resulted in the consolidation of market power, leaving little bargaining heft with original content creators to the latter’s disadvantage. “The news publishers have no negotiating leverage at all, and this needs to be tackled legislatively. This is an important issue for us,” Chandrasekhar told TOI.

The matter has raise by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) and the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) with India’s anti-trust body Competition Commission of India (CCI); the publishers’ bodies have accused Google of abusing its dominating position in imposing unfair conditions on media companies.