Facebook’s deal with Australia gives it a path to avoid required payments to publishers for news content, so long as the company works toward reaching agreements with publishers on its own accord. The payments Facebook has made to date aren’t overly costly for the company, whose ad business drove it to a record $86 billion in revenue last year. In the hours after Facebook’s decision to shut off news sharing in Australia, news publishers in the country saw traffic from readers outside Australia decrease by about 20%, data from analytics firm Chartbeat showed. Last week the company reached a three-year deal with Google to license content from its publication and produce new products for Google platforms. Google said it has signed News Showcase deals with more than 500 publications in a dozen countries, including Germany, the U.K. and Australia.

Source: Mint February 24, 2021 08:15 UTC