Australia to tax digital platforms, search engines that don't pay for news

The Australian government said Thursday it will tax large digital platforms and search engines unless they agree to share revenue with Australian news media organisations.

The tax would apply from January 1 to tech companies that earn more than 250 million Australian dollars ($160 million) a year in revenue from Australia, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said.

They include Meta, Google, Alphabet and ByteDance.

The tax would be offset through money paid to Australian media organizations. The size of the tax is not clear.

"The real objective ... is not to raise revenue -- we hope not to raise any revenue. The real objective is to incentivise agreement-making between platforms and news media businesses in Australia, Jones told reporters.

The move comes after Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced that it would not renew three-year deals to pay Australian news publishers for their content.

A previous government introduced in 2021 laws called the New Media Bargaining Code that forced tech giants to strike revenue-sharing deals with Australian media companies or face fines of 10% of their Australian revenue.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.