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Google has agreed to pay more than $40.2 million (688 million rands) to support South African news media following a finding by the country’s Competition Commission (CompCom) that the company reduced content visibility and monetisation opportunities for local outlets.
The CompCom, which detailed its inquiry and findings in a final report published this Thursday, concluded that Google dominates key gateways for South Africans to access information.
The investigation found that Google’s algorithmic structure tends to favor large foreign outlets, leading to a deepening inequality in content visibility and advertising reach for local and vernacular media.
The report noted that while news content drives user engagement that Google monetises through advertising, the company does not compensate South African media for the news it displays or summarises.
The inquiry highlighted a sharp decline in referral traffic as users increasingly consume AI-generated summaries directly on Google’s own platforms.
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After two months of negotiations, CompCom reached an agreement with Google and YouTube to finalise a ‘comprehensive package of remedies’ aimed at restoring fairness and sustainability to South Africa’s media ecosystem.
The key components of the settlement include a $40.2 million support package to fund national, community, and vernacular media through content licensing, innovation grants, and capacity-building initiatives.
It also includes the introduction of new user tools by Google to prioritise local news sources and commitments to provide technical assistance to improve website performance, share enhanced audience data, and establish an African News Innovation Forum.
The CompCom inquiry also examined other global platforms and found that Microsoft exhibited a similar foreign bias through its MSN service and as a result, Microsoft has agreed to extend its MSN news contracts to include five additional South African publishers.
