The ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) on Wednesday held an inter-ministerial meeting with various departments to discuss issues regarding revenue sharing between Big Tech companies and digital news publishers, Business Standard reported.

The meeting — chaired by I&B Secretary Sanjay Jaju — invited senior officials from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Competition Commission of India (CCI), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), and Departments of promotion of industry and internal trade, legal affairs and consumer affairs.

“We have only had a preliminary discussion to develop an understanding of the issue at hand and whose purview these matters would fall under,” a senior official said.

The government has been approached by digital news publishers regarding the abuse of dominant position by Big Tech players in ad-revenue share agreements.

The discussion comes in the backdrop of the draft digital competition Bill proposed by the MCA.

The Bill was drafted on the suggestions of an expert committee constituted to look into the need for ex ante regulations for Big Tech companies.

Favouring the ex ante regulations, the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) had said large digital enterprises indulge in non-transparent data and revenue sharing policies, search and ranking preferencing. They are into bundling, tying and collecting user data to improve their own products, allowing bidding on keywords, leading to infringement of registered trademarks, among other issues.

“CCI should have pre-factum power for checking abuse of dominant position by large digital enterprises before revenue-sharing agreements are entered into with news publishers,” DNPA had said.