CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s government says it will amend draft laws that would make Google and Facebook pay for news to clarify that publishers would be paid in lump sums rather than per click on news article links. The legislative amendments follow Australian ministers’ weekend discussions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google. The conservative government hopes to enact the so-called News Media Bargaining Code before the current session of Parliament ends next week. A government statement said the changes to be introduced to Parliament on Wednesday “improve the workability of the code while retaining its overall effect.”
