While the digital giants can afford the likely cost of paying for the Australian news they link to, they are concerned about the international precedent that Australia could set.
Google and Facebook were close to striking “significant commercial deals” to pay Australian media for news ahead of Australia creating world-first laws that would force the digital giants to finance journalism, a minister said Monday.
Parliament is scheduled to consider the draft laws on Tuesday after a Senate committee last week recommended no changes to the proposed regulations that Google and Facebook have condemned as unworkable.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, one of ministers responsible for the legislation, said he had discussions at the weekend with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google. Mr. Frydenberg had also spoken with Australian news media executives.
“We’ve made real progress, I think, in the last 48 to 72 hours and I…
