WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to approve a bill aimed at allowing news organizations to band together to negotiate with Alphabet Inc’s Google and Meta’s Facebook and win more revenue.
It must now go to the Senate for their approval. A similar bill is before the U.S. House of Representatives.
The bill is aimed at giving news and broadcast organizations more clout after years of criticism that the big tech companies use their content to attract traffic and ad revenue without fairly compensating the publishers, many of which have struggled to make profits in recent years.
Unlike other bills aimed at reining in big tech, some progressive groups oppose this measure, including Public Knowledge, on the grounds that it favors big broadcasters like News Corp, Sinclair and Comcast/NBCU.
Also opposing the bill are two technology industry trade groups that Facebook and Google belong to: the Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
