Google has denied allegations that it earns substantial amount of money through the content of South Africa’s media houses. Several local news agencies have argued that tech giants such as Google enjoy a lion’s share of advertising revenue due to rising online consumption trends.
However, Google says it actually gives back to local news agencies by letting them place their content on its platform.
A Google News Partner Lead for South Africa, Marianne Erasmus, is making submissions at the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry in Pretoria.
“Google does not earn substantial revenue from news in 2022. The news queries use queries in South Africa accounted for less than 2% of people search queries in South Africa. And that resulted … the ads placed on those queries resulted in less than 35 million South African rand in revenue for Google. In contrast, Google sent 600 million free referral clicks to South African publishers from Google search and Google News. These clicks that publishers can then in turn monetize on their website through advertising or subscriptions.”
