In his piece, Starmer stated: “In the platform age, it’s only fair that creators are fairly rewarded for their work and not just the platforms that profit from it. That’s why we support moves to make platforms pay for news content and to give newspapers and publishers greater control of their data and content. The government must act to secure the future of our media”.

The Labour Party’s recently published industrial strategy also voiced support for digital competition legislation.

Accusing the Conservative Party of “dragg[ing] its feet” on digital competition legislation, Starmer acknowledged that big tech companies have come to dominate the digital advertising market. The Labour Leader also observed that the “creative industries and the pipelines for the talent they nurture are a driver of economic growth in lots of cities around the UK”.

Google and Meta dominate the online advertising market, with Google-run services dominant at every stage of the ad tech supply chain. This means that advertisers pay more for adverts and content providers lose out on ad revenues – the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that publishers receive only 65% of online ad spend. This dominance also gives Google and Facebook a quasi-regulatory role in relation to data protection.

The Government has so far not published the draft Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill promised in the Queen’s Speech, which would empower the Digital Markets Unit to rebalance the relationship between platforms and publishers. This is despite a range of jurisdictions around the world forging ahead with their own solutions, many of which were inspired by work conducted by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The legislation to empower the DMU will likely set out three Objectives for the new digital competition regime: Fair Trading, Open Choices, and Trust and Transparency. A number of Principles will be articulated from these Objectives, and put into the legislation. Drawing on these Principles after the Bill is made law, the DMU will be able to develop Codes of Conduct specific to each SMS firm’s business model, aiding compliance. Whilst the guidance would not be legally binding, it would help SMS firms and UK businesses and consumers by clarifying what behaviour may breach the Code.

The PPA continues to engage with parliamentarians, civil servants, and regulators to call for the swift empowerment of the DMU and ensure that specialist publishers are prioritised when the regulator is able to enforce the new regulations.