Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act

Even if you agree that Google should have to prop up Canadian news organizations—which I don't, but for the sake of argument—predicating that support specifically on hyperlinks seems like a terrible precedent to set. Any site of any size should be free to link wherever it wants, freely.

Respect to Meta for having the courage to stand up to the media lobby in Canada and turn off news in response to this law. I'm happy that Google wrung concessions out of the government, but it would've been better for the open internet had they stuck to their guns and removed news links as well.

As a Canadian this is disappointing to me. I disagree with the law. Actually, disagree is too soft. I think it is absolutely ridiculous. By Google agreeing to pay even one penny, it removes a large incentive for our politicans and regulations to realize that this was ill-conceived and to come to their senses and repeal.

"The new regulations will allow Google to negotiate with a single group that would represent all media, allowing the company to limit its arbitration risk." - I'm sure this will be a large and diverse group representing the growing diversity of media in Canada, either that or it will be Rogers, Bell and Postmedia doing what they usually do, which is really nothing of value.

Gotta love the regulatory capture that will come with this for that one single news collective. They'll extract a nice little rent for not really providing a ton of benefit

I always thought the intention was to get the same deal as Australia: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-australia-56163550" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-australia-56163550</a>. It&#x27;s not a surprise that Canada&#x27;s media industry wanted the same deal and the government was willing to go to bat for it.<p>The BBC article from 2021 linked above even says &quot;The law is seen as a test case for similar regulation around the world.&quot;

“The agreement would see Canadian news continue to be shared on Google&#x27;s platforms in return for the company making annual payments to news companies in the range of $100 million, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told CBC News.”

Taken in the context of Google as a whole, this seems like pretty good evidence that Google does not consider itself to benefit from monopoly power like the DOJ claims. If Google did have a monopolistic advantage, they could refuse to pay the link tax. Clearly they&#x27;re worried about losing market share to other search engines.<p>[usual disclaimer: I work at Google but on nothing related to search or policy]

I&#x27;m no fan of Google whatsoever but I really don&#x27;t agree with this premise that just because they&#x27;re successful and their competitors haven&#x27;t figured out how to compete yet that Google should then be forced to be sugar daddy to legacy businesses. The solution is unleashing your tech industry not more nanny laws.

I wonder if this makes it harder for competition to enter the search engine market.

Poilievre pledged to repeal Bill C-18 (the &quot;link tax&quot;) and is leading in the polls, so there&#x27;s that.

FAANG company pays the Danegeld to yet another country&#x27;s entrenched media interests, episode 4562.

This looks like a capitulation for the Canadian government to save face. The goal was to provide continuous money for Canadian media (based on clicks not a 100 mill lump sum to an organization representing all media) and more importantly to give legacy media clicks - privilege their content over other content.<p>Google and facebook refused, and I think this is Canada&#x27;s government and their media lobbyists bowing to a watered down money payment to save face after not getting what they actually sought for

Sad for google to fold like this. Though very true to form.

I&#x27;m no fan of Google, but if it was me making the decision I would have told them to pack sand. Google is providing them with a service, not the other way around.

This is just shameful

I think search engines should be opt-in, not opt-out. Just linking to something is fine, but search engines also takes content and uses it to earn money. One example is the cards on Google where they extract content and shows it alongside ads.<p>Nothing else I can think of works like this. Generally if you take the work of others without being allowed and use it to make money you&#x27;ll end up in trouble.<p>Now, for most people the trade-off is worth it, but it should not be the default. It should be a quick opt-in using robots.txt.

One side effect of this whole ordeal that I hate is the fact that fake news sites and conspiracy theory sites that masquerade as &quot;news sites&quot; are not blocked. The result is that platforms are filled with bad content that some people find hard to differentiate from the truth.

Next up: Canadian news agencies forcing their employees to click on their links a thousand times per day to prop up this new and lucrative revenue stream.

A big win for Canadian media company shareholders.

We just need a piece of action...let&#x27;s be honest here, a bit of your $$$ to grant you...to persuade the public to grant you access.

This is terrible, it will only encourage the Canadian gov to regulate more tech related things. They absolutely suck at tech.

So if I just put a link on my blog to a source news article I have to pay for the pleasure?

I think the only thing that matters is getting the news to readers one way or the other. The biggest problem here is that most news outlets publish underfunded garbage if not click bait.<p>An even weirder perspective: What if they didn&#x27;t kill reader?

I wonder what SEO that decision will lead to.<p>$100 million a year can incentivise some awful outcomes.

So what the Canadian government and journalists are telling me is that they&#x27;d like any outlet that doesn&#x27;t loudly opt out to be considered government shills.

I&#x27;m glad Canada stayed relatively firm on this. The prior art in Australia made this a no brainer.

14m daily fb users in canada, $6 per head. I don&#x27;t know if that&#x27;s too much or too little.

What I find incredible about this overall controversy is how Canadian news outlets begged for this law, and now they are all butthurt that they have no traffic. I have no idea why they thought they had leverage.

(lol i have to edit this mistake I&#x27;ve seen before)

Who qualifies as a news organization under this law? Can any random declare themselves a &quot;journalist&quot;? Or do the benefits accrue only to Trusted Sources approved by Your Friend, The Government?

I think this is horrible for the internet. Sets a terrible precedent.

Where does this end? Can’t any country squat on links and require (not just google, but whoever) pay?

&gt; Canadian government reaches deal with Google on Online News Act<p>Canada: the best democracy, money can buy. &#x2F;s

So apparently it is plausible to require, then.