U.S. Senate panel delays vote on bill allowing news outlets to negotiate jointly with Big Tech

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee scrapped a planned vote on Thursday aimed at allowing news organizations to win more revenue from Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google and Meta’s (META.O) Facebook.

“Today we held over the bill in the Judiciary Committee in part because a colleague was out and we needed his vote on one amendment,” said bill sponsor Senator Amy Klobuchar. “I fully plan to move forward with the bill.”

Supporters of the bill have said that it is necessary in order to ensure that news organizations, which have struggled to make profits in recent years, receive a fair share of advertising revenue from Google and Facebook by allowing them to band together to negotiate collectively with the tech companies.

Unlike other bills aimed at reining in big tech, some progressive groups oppose this measure, including Public Knowledge, Common Cause and Consumer Reports. The groups joined a letter that criticized the measure because, among other things, it “favors big broadcasters such as News Corp, Sinclair, iHeart and Comcast/NBCU over any other form of journalism, and it undermines the stated goal of helping local news.” Reuters