Privacy, ads focus of reply to report

Data privacy and the ad market dominance of Google and Facebook have been flagged as Canberra’s major concerns.

Josh Frydenberg has flagged data privacy and the advertising market dominance of Google and Facebook as his major concerns in crafting the government’s response to the ACCC’s digital platforms ­inquiry.

Speaking to Sky’s Business Weekend, the Treasurer also opened the door to delaying the federal government’s response to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission inquiry until next year.

Following the release of the ACCC report in July the government said its response would be overseen by Mr Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher and released by the end of the year.

Asked directly whether the report would be released soon, Mr Frydenberg said he would “like to” release the report by the end of the year but did not guarantee it.

“We are obviously focused on that report and we will responding in due course; this is a groundbreaking report by the ACCC,’’ he said.

“I would like to do that (release the response by December), we are just working through the details, other countries are looking at it very closely.

“There were 23 recommendations. We held a consultation period with industry based on those recommendations. They cover everything from unfair contract terms to privacy settings.’’

The ACCC report recommended a code of conduct ­between the likes of Facebook and Google and media companies that would aim to return ­revenue for the platforms’ use of journalism, but with the digital ­giants ­objecting to the recommendation the Treasurer stopped short of ­endorsing revenue.

“You will see our response when it comes out in full, I’m not going down the route of particular recommendations,’’ he said.

However, Mr Frydenberg said there were “clearly market concentration issues”.

“You’ve got this situation where for every $100 of online advertising, excluding classifieds, you’ve got nearly $50 of those dollars making there way into the Google coffers, and just about $24 making its way into Facebook and $29 being shared among the rest.’’

The ACCC have also launched a landmark court case against Google, claiming it failed to inform consumers how it was collecting location data of users, with Mr Frydenberg also flagging privacy as a chief concern of the response.

“There is a lot of data that is being gathered by these companies often not with the consent of the public consent, or at least not with their express consent, and that data is being monetised,” he said.