The Google logo is seen during the annual developer conference Google I/O on May 10, 2023 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California.
TORONTO, Canada (AP) — Canada “will not back down” in the face of opposition from tech giants to a new law that requires companies like Google and Meta to pay publishers for news content, Culture Minister Pascale St-Onge said Friday.
She added that she was “optimistic” that Google would pass, while Meta continued to take a hard line against the bill.
However, in a press release late Friday, Google said it continued to have “serious concerns” about the law and called on Ottawa to consider rewriting the law.
The Online News Act builds on similar legislation introduced in Australia and aims to support a struggling Canadian news sector that has seen a flood of advertising dollars and the closure of hundreds of publications over the last decade.
“We saw two different types of reactions,” St-Onge told press officers gathered in Toronto for a media conference.
“Google has been involved and cooperating throughout the entire process, and on the other hand, Meta has chosen to ban news in Canada, even though the law is not even currently enforced.”
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Meta called Bill C-18 “fundamentally flawed” and blocked news access to news articles on its Facebook and Instagram platforms in Canada starting in August.
Google has opposed the online news law passed in June, but has delayed taking any action – including removing Canadian news from its online searches and other digital services – until the law takes effect in December.
The two companies control about 80 percent of all online advertising revenue in Canada, worth billions of dollars.
The government estimates it could cost the couple a total of 230 million Canadian dollars ($170 million) if it were to require them to enter into fair trade deals with Canadian broadcasters for the news and information shared on their platforms, or themselves would have to submit to binding arbitration.
St-Onge acknowledged that Google “doesn’t want to get into arbitration for commercial agreements,” while Facebook “doesn’t want to regulate content.”
“We’re trying to find the right balance,” she said, knowing that other nations are watching and interested in how things play out.
This is “uncharted territory,” said the minister.
“Canada is only the second jurisdiction in the world, after Australia, to adopt this type of negotiating framework.”
“We are moving forward, but we are also facing a lot of resistance from the tech giants,” she said.
Contacted by AFP, Google Canada claimed on Friday that “critical structural issues” in the bill had “not been adequately addressed.”
“We remain concerned that these fundamental issues cannot be resolved through regulation and may require legislative changes,” a spokesperson said in an email.
In its statement hours later, Google went on to say that to be viable, the law would need to clarify the eligibility requirements for news organizations to receive support and clarify what types of support are eligible. It must also include incentives for news organizations to enter into negotiations in good faith.
It also called for a compensation cap in line with global precedents such as the European Copyright Directive.
More controversially, Google insisted that the law only covers curated news and not just links to news or article snippets.