Big Tech firms are clobbering traditional news organizations, media representatives told lawmakers Tuesday, asking for new authority to allow the struggling sector to team up against online platforms.

The comments came as the House Judiciary Committee opened the first in what is expected to be a series of hearings examining the dominance of Big Tech in several economic sectors.

Tuesday's hearing sought to focus on the plight of news organizations, which have struggled to keep up with the dominance of Facebook and Google in online advertising.

"In effect, a couple of dominant tech platforms are acting as regulators of the digital news industry," said David Chavern of the News Media Alliance, previously known as the Newspaper Association of America.

"The result of the tech platforms' regulation of the news industry has been to siphon revenue away from news organizations."

But Chavern said that rather than push for a breakup, Congress should pass a law giving the media sector its own antitrust exemption to better compete with Big Tech.

He cited the proposed Journalism Competition and Preservation Act as "an innovative, market-oriented solution" to the problem.

"Markets work best when different parties can negotiate with one another on reasonably even footing -- and where both parties have some leverage to credibly withdraw from negotiations if the other side demands unreasonable or exploitative terms," he said.

The bill "helps remedy this imbalance by allowing news organizations to bargain collectively against dominant tech platforms."

David Pitofsky, general counsel at News Corp, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, offered similar remarks.

"If publishers could band together they might be able to use their collective leverage to bring the platforms to the negotiating table. But doing so is made impossible by the antitrust laws," Pitofsky said.

Pitofsky said he is hopeful for "reinvigorated antitrust enforcement" but noted that this would "require years of investigation and litigation."

"In the interim, news publishers need a fighting chance. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act is well-designed to help restore the proper balance between content generators and content distributors."

Gene Kimmelman of the consumer group Public Knowledge said the news sector's woes are deep but should be resolved through market forces.

"We do not believe this problem will be solved by allowing more consolidation of power, whether among platforms or media," Kimmelman said.

"And we believe exceptions to the antitrust laws should be a tool of last resort, if they are ever used. Enabling excess market power to challenge the existing dominant platforms does nothing to address the long term need to develop market forces that promote strong local journalism."

Media group study finds Google makes billions from news
Washington (AFP) June 10, 2019 - Google took in some $4.7 billion in revenue in 2018 from "crawling and scraping" news websites without paying publishers, according to an industry-sponsored study released Monday which was disputed by the tech giant and media analysts.

The study by the News Media Alliance underscores industry arguments about Google and other online giants harming traditional news organizations by dominating the internet news ecosystem and ad revenues generated through it.

According to the study, Google has increasingly monetized news content as it works to keep consumers in its ecosystem, and that news searches helps the internet giant gather data from its users to help tailor its other products.

The report is expected to be presented this week to a congressional hearing on antitrust abuses by Big Tech firms and to support legislation that would allow news organizations exemptions from antitrust to negotiate digital revenues.

Google disputed the findings of the study, as did some media analysts.

"These back of the envelope calculations are inaccurate as a number of experts are pointing out," a Google spokesperson said.

"The overwhelming number of news queries do not show ads. The study ignores the value Google provides. Every month Google News and Google Search drive over 10 billion clicks to publishers' websites, which drive subscriptions and significant ad revenue."

Other analysts also voiced skepticism about the methods and conclusions of the study by the media group previously known as the Newspaper Association of America.

Jeff Jarvis, a City University of New York journalism professor, called the study flawed, in part because it relies on "snippets" in search results.

"Snippets in search are NOT content," Jarvis said on Twitter. "They are links TO the publishers. Google does not monetize Google News. When it makes money on news it's by serving ads ON publishers' sites."

Temple University professor Aron Pilhofer said the study fails to consider how Google drives users to news websites where publishers can generate revenue.

"Even if you accept the methodology (which I do not), I think it's fair to also account for all the traffic Google is pushing to publisher sites, wouldn't it? This is just silly," Pilhofer tweeted.

The study comes months after the European Union adopted a hotly contested copyright law that could require Google and other online giants to pay publishers for news content in search results.

Many media companies and artists backed the EU move aimed at getting revenue from web platforms. But the law was strongly opposed by internet freedom activists and by Silicon Valley on concerns it could chill the sharing of information.

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US antitrust hammer for Big Tech: what happens next?
Washington (AFP) June 4, 2019
Big Tech firms are facing an antitrust onslaught in Washington, including reported probes of monopoly abuse by regulators and at least one congressional investigation. Here are three questions and answers on how these actions may play out: - What is the basis for antitrust actions against Big Tech? Each firm has different issues, but any probes could center on whether they abused their dominant position and stifled competition. Google may face questions on whether its search results favo ... read more