The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), a government agency that is primarily concerned with the protection of consumer rights, was directed in 2017 to conduct an inquiry into online platforms for news and entertainment. “[...] The inquiry will look at the effect that digital search engines, social media platforms and other digital content aggregation platforms have on competition in media and advertising services markets. In particular, the inquiry will look at the impact of digital platforms on the supply of news and journalistic content and the implications of this for media content creators, advertisers and consumers.” [1]
A number of different companies, peak bodies and special interest groups have submitted documents to the ACCC (as one would expect for any sort of government enquiry into an area that is relevant to those groups) but I was surprised to see that Oracle had made a submission to the enquiry given that they don’t seem to have any specific ties to any news or entertainment platforms. Upon reading it, I found that it seems to have been primarily written to criticise Google, their market power and behaviour.
Is this sort of thing common among large companies whenever there’s any sort of government enquiry or investigation?
A number of different companies, peak bodies and special interest groups have submitted documents to the ACCC (as one would expect for any sort of government enquiry into an area that is relevant to those groups) but I was surprised to see that Oracle had made a submission to the enquiry given that they don’t seem to have any specific ties to any news or entertainment platforms. Upon reading it, I found that it seems to have been primarily written to criticise Google, their market power and behaviour.
Is this sort of thing common among large companies whenever there’s any sort of government enquiry or investigation?
[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/inquiries/digital-platfo...