The Canadian bill would require Google, whose parent company is Alphabet Inc. , Facebook, and its parent company, Meta Platforms Inc. , and other similar online platforms to contract with Canadian news providers and pay for their content.
If the law is passed, Google will be forced to remove links to news from its Canadian search engine
Richard Gingras, vice president of news services at Google, told a Canadian Senate committee.
Meta Canadian official Rachel Curran said at the hearing that Meta will also end making Canadian news available on its platform if the law goes into effect.
A legal campaign has been launched against the tech giants
Australia was the first to take action against the online tech giants in 2021: Google and Facebook also first warned they would limit their services in Australia, but both companies eventually agreed to a compromise with Australian media companies.
- In his speech, Richard Gingras argued that last year Google contacted Canadian news providers more than 3.6 billion times, benefiting the Canadian side in ads and subscriptions.
- According to Rachel Curran, content posted on Facebook has also benefited Canadian publishers. It is estimated that this free marketing was worth $230 million in the year ending April 2022.
A model where news providers charge money for news and links that they voluntarily upload to the platform cannot work.
Curran stressed.
The bill was introduced by Canadian Heritage in April 2022.
A spokesperson for the ministry said they only ask tech giants like Facebook or Google to make a fair deal with news portals if they benefit from their work.
