Google Threatens to Block News Links in Canada, Says Ottawa Not Addressing Concerns With New Law

The new Google logo is displayed at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., on Sept. 2, 2015. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

By Chandra Philip

Updated: October 7, 2023

Google reiterated its threat to block news links in Canada after saying the federal government has still not addressed concerns over a new law that requires payment for publishers on Oct. 6.

The new legislation, Online News Act—known as Bill C-18 before it became law—requires that online platforms negotiate deals with and pay Canadian media outlets for any of their news and information linked on their platforms. The government says the legislation will help Canada’s struggling media industry.

In response to the legislation, Meta, the owner of Facebook, started blocking news content on its platform in August, arguing that it makes more economic sense to not allow news links on its platform than to pay for them under the terms of the new legislation and its regulatory burden. Google is making a similar argument.

In an email to The Epoch Times on Oct. 6, Google spokesperson Shay Purdy said the company is committed to being transparent with the government about its concerns and is waiting for the publication of final regulations.

“We continue to have serious concerns that the core issues ultimately may not be solvable through regulation and that legislative changes may be necessary,” the email said.

The bill was given royal assent on June 22 and is expected to become law within 180 days, which is mid-December, something Google says could cause it to block news sites shortly.

“The timing problem remains, potentially putting Google in a position of having to suspend links to news content while it works towards an exemption,” an Oct. 6 statement from the company said.

The Epoch Times reached out to Heritage Minister Pascale St.-Onge but did not hear back by publication time.

The federal government has said it continues to negotiate with the tech giants to implement the new legislation.

Ms. St.-Onge says the Canadian media landscape is changing too quickly, which means there’s not enough time to get the legislation perfect. Speaking at the MINDS international news agency conference in Toronto on Oct. 6, she emphasized the need for government regulation of digital platforms.

“Even though it’s not perfect, even though some are not pleased with what we’re doing, but this new challenge is coming so fast that we need to address it as quickly as possible,” she said.

Regulations Based on False Ideas, Google Says

Mr. Purdy said that regulations proposed by the federal government on Sept. 2 in hopes of getting platforms like Google on board “fail to sufficiently address the critical structural problems with C-18 that regrettably were not dealt with during the legislative process.”

In its Oct. 6 statement, Google said the legislation is based on the idea that it profits from providing news links, something it argues is not true.

“News represents a very small proportion of overall searches. In 2022, news queries accounted for less than 2 percent of Search queries in Canada, and were generally less monetizable than average queries,” the company said.

“The revenue earned from clicks on the relatively small number of ads shown against those queries represented a small fraction of the value we provide to publishers in the form of referral traffic.”

The statement said that in 2022, it sent over 3.6 billion visitors to Canadian news sites, resulting in an estimated $250 million worth of value to publishers.

Michael Geist, internet law professor at the University of Ottawa and critic of the new law, said on social media that there are multiple government failures when it comes to the legislation.

“What stands out from the Google submission on Bill C-18 is that it believes the government has got it wrong on the economics, wrong on the regs, and wrong on the law. Heritage Minister @PascaleStOnge_ insistence that an agreement is likely is fantasy,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Link Tax

The regulations announced by the federal government indicate that Google would have to pay 4 percent of their Canadian revenue, something that Google says equates to a link tax.

“Putting a price on free linking to news content clearly amounts to a link tax even if the tax is not expressed on a per link basis. Regrettably, the Regulations fail to provide a clearly defined limit on contributions or clarify that such contributions would not be tied to ‘making available’ the news content of news businesses,” Google said.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.

Source

Canada News

Google Threatens to Block News Links in Canada, Says Ottawa Not Addressing Concerns With New Law

Regulations Based on False Ideas, Google Says

Link Tax

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