Google announced that it will stop displaying links to Canadian news in its products in Canada after the passage of the Online News Act, which requires online platforms to pay content fees to Canadian media outlets.
“When the law goes into effect, we will remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products and will no longer be able to operate the Google News Showcase in Canada,” Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google and Alphabet. he said in a statement Thursday.
Last week, Meta also said it would remove Canadian News from Instagram and Facebook. Google and Meta have rejected the soon-to-be-lawed Online News Act, which was designed to help struggling news outlets get better compensation from Big Tech.
Google criticized the law, calling it «unworkable» and «the wrong approach to support journalism in Canada.» Google will also end its Google News Showcase program in Canada, which pays news publishers to curate news across Google platforms.
“We are disappointed that it has come to this. We do not take this decision or its impacts lightly and believe it is important to be transparent with Canadian publishers and our users as soon as possible,” he said.
Google said it helps news publishers earn money through ads and new subscriptions that result from exposure on Google platforms.
Lawmakers introduced the law, known as Bill C-18, in response to the rapid decline of local newsrooms in Canada in recent years, when Big Tech benefited from online advertising revenue, according Canadian Ministry of Heritage.
“We want to make sure that the media and journalists are fairly compensated for their work,” Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodríguez, a sponsor of the bill, said in a statement last year.
Bill C-18, which was introduced in April 2022, passed Royal Assent, the last step before becoming federal law, on June 22. The law will undergo a regulatory process before being implemented, in which Google said it plans to participate. .
Canada’s bill was inspired by a law of Australiapresented in 2021, which promoted Google and Meta to pay content fees to Australian news publications. Initially, Facebook removed sharing and viewing of local and international news in Australia, but restored access to the news a few days after negotiations with the Australian government.
In the past three years, several countries have implemented similar regulations requiring technology companies to pay local news organizations for their online content.
In 2021, Google agreed to pay french publications to reuse its content. In 2020, through the Google News Showcase, agreed to pay for publications in Germany, Brazil, the UK and other countries in a $1 billion deal.
Google pulled its news service from Spain in 2014 instead of paying editors, but refunded News in Spanish last year after the country’s copyright laws gave news outlets more control over monetization.
In the US, slower progress has been made in efforts to charge big tech for news content.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., this month introduced the Journalism Preservation and Competition Act, which had stalled in previous years, through the Judiciary Committee. I would support news publishers in negotiating with technological platforms for content rates.
goal above speak against the law, threatening to remove the news from its platforms if Congress passes the bill.
a similar bill was introduced in California in March; would require social media companies to pay a «journalistic usage fee» that includes a percentage of their ad revenue to news publishers.