Each year, Google pays more than $100 million to Australian news publishers under the News Media Bargaining Code. Under the threat of being forced to pay up, the law encourages Google and Facebook to negotiate commercial deals with publishers to use their content. And they have – the two companies pay north of $200 million a year between them.

But a new study from Switzerland suggests Google snagged a bargain – local journalistic content could be worth eight times more for a search engine. In 2022, Google made $US162 billion ($252 billion) from advertising on its search pages, and as much as $5.5 billion, on one estimate, from searches in Australia. And at the end of next year, the first of the three-year deals Google negotiated with media companies will come up for renewal.