By William Turvill, PressGazette, May 17, 2022
Google has hit back at Canada’s attempts to make it pay for news, claiming the government’s Online News Act would “break” its search engine.
In a blog post, Sabrina Geremia, the vice president and managing director of Google Canada, also suggested the act would harm the nation’s news industry.
Canada’s Online News Act will, like Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, seek to force Google and Meta/Facebook to negotiate cash-for-content deals with news publishers.
Both Google and Meta spoke out strongly against Australia’s legislation before it was passed into law. Google threatened to withdraw its services from Australia, and Meta blocked news content – as well as other important public information – from its platforms for several days.
Ultimately, both companies remained in Australia and signed content deals with publishers thought to be worth in excess of AU$200m a year.
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