TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Google will provide NT$300 million (US$9.8 million) in funding for journalistic projects in Taiwan over the next three years, but Taiwan's media industry has still not come to an agreement with big tech companies as it seeks payment for use of its content.

Google launched the Taiwan News Digital Co-Prosperity Fund on Wednesday (March 8) to provide grants for Taiwan news media organizations and journalists in a move the company said will support the “transformation, development, and sustainability of the news industry." Applications for funding will open in May.

Despite the grants, the issue of tech giants' unpaid use of news content on their platforms still looms large. Taiwan's media industry has joined other countries in calling on the big tech companies to pay for the use of its content, but interested parties have still not reached an agreement.

In December 2022, Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) and media industry representatives launched the first round of discussions with Google and Meta. Deputy Digital Minister Lee Huai-jen (李懷仁) said the next round of discussions is likely to happen in March.

News Partner Manager of Google Taiwan Adrian Gregory Lui (陳漢隆) said that Google was focused on "common prosperity" instead of "profit sharing." He said that Google only displays snippets of news content in its search results, such as titles, pictures, and abstracts.

Lui also said this helps Taiwanese news outlets by directing traffic to their websites, which Google does not profit from. Despite this, many in the media industry believe that Google's massive ad revenue is built on the backs of news content it does not pay for, though this is not universally agreed upon.

Government interventions requiring big tech companies to pay news outlets for content have yielded mixed results. Google pulled its news services from Spain in 2014 after the country passed legislation requiring it to pay news outlets for content. It relaunched in Spain eight years later, after the country adopted EU regulations that allowed it to publish very short extracts of news.

In 2021, Facebook also briefly removed news content from Australian users' feeds after Australia passed a law requiring tech companies to pay local operators for content. Services were restored only a few days later, but as a result of the law, Australia's national broadcaster said it was able to hire 60 more regional journalists, expand existing bureaus, and open new ones.

Companies like Google and Facebook certainly have changed the way news media is consumed. Market research commissioned by Google indicates that 81% of people now obtain their news through the internet or social media, and between 2003 and 2020, ad revenues for "traditional publications" dropped by 70%.