The general counsel of News Corp., The Post’s parent company, appeared Tuesday before a House subcommittee scrutinizing the technology industry’s stranglehold on traditional media companies.
“The marketplace for news is broken,” David Pitofsky said in his testimony to the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, according to Bloomberg.
The counsel slammed the “free riding by the dominant online platforms,” which have taken advertising dollars from the news organizations who create the content.
“Dominant online platforms control the infrastructure, data and tools for news publishers to sell and serve online ads, while simultaneously competing against those publishers for the very same ad dollars,” Pitofsky said. “This presents a significant conflict of interest.”
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said Facebook and Google have an enormous amount of control over the new consumption of Americans.
The panel before the committee also included Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor Kevin Riley and Matt Schruers, a vice president at the Computer & Communications Industry Association.