Canada (Commonwealth) _According to a Canadian official, Canada and Google have agreed to keep connections to news items in search results and for the internet to pay $73.6 million yearly, or C$100 million, to Canadian news publishers.
The agreement mitigates Alphabet-owned Google’s fears about Canada’s Online News Act, which requires major internet companies to split advertising revenue with Canadian news publishers.
Following weeks of constructive conversations, Canada’s heritage minister Pascale St-Onge stated in a statement that he was glad to report that an avenue to move ahead with Google for the implementation of the Online News Act had been discovered.
The Online News Act, which is part of a global movement to make internet firms pay for news, was enacted in June, and the government is completing guidelines that are anticipated to be issued by a deadline of December 19th.
We are glad that the Government of Canada has committed to addressing key flaws with Bill C-18, following lengthy conversations. Alphabet’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, issued a statement. “We will continue providing vital traffic to Canadian publishers,” he told reporters.
Google will make an annual contribution as part of the deal with Canada. As part of the deal with Canada, Google will pay C$100 million to news organizations each year, linked to inflation, with the option of distributing the monies through a single collective.
Google has previously threatened to restrict news on its search engine, which is a key source of traffic for practically all websites on the internet, claiming that Canadian legislation was stricter than that of Europe and Australia. The corporation expressed fear that it would be exposed to possibly unlimited liabilities.
According to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Google has pledged to adequately support journalists, especially local news. Unfortunately, Meta continues to abrogate any responsibility for democratic institutions, he said.
Meta Platforms, the second target of the bill, has already prohibited news sharing on Facebook and Instagram due to its worries. The move has engulfed the corporation in a months-long fight with huge Canadian news publishers, effectively strangling smaller newspapers.
St-Onge stated that the agreement with Google demonstrates that the new regulation is effective, and he challenged Meta to justify its choice to ban news sharing in Canada.
She noted that if better arrangements are achieved elsewhere in the globe, Canada will be free to renew the agreement with Google. Google agreed last month to pay a group of German publishers 3.2 million euros ($3.5 million) a year for the publication of their news content.
In accordance with a company statement, Meta’s decision has not altered. We do not aggressively pull news from the internet to post in our users’ feeds, unlike search engines, and we have long been clear that the only way we can properly comply with the Online News Act is to discontinue news availability for Canadians, according to the spokesman.
The measure was enacted in response to protests from Canada’s media sector, which wants greater control of technology companies to prevent them from edging out news organizations in the internet advertising market.
News Media Canada’s chief executive officer, Paul Deegan, praised the agreement and commended the government for assuring monetary remuneration for publishers. The agreement was first reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We thank Google for their good faith, socially responsible approach, said Deegan in a statement.
Meta has previously taken similar actions. It briefly removed news from its platform in Australia in 2021 after the country approved legislation requiring digital firms to pay publishers for using their news content. It later signed agreements with Australian publishers.
