June 2, 2022
By William Turvill, PressGazette
Google has stepped up its campaign against Canada’s Online News Act, insisting that the legislation could “break” its search engine.
Colin McKay, who leads public policy and government relations for Google in Canada, wrote to every MP and senator to express his company’s concerns about the legislation.
He claimed that the bill, known as C-18 in Ottawa, is being “rushed through” parliament, leaving “insufficient opportunity for thoughtful analysis and conversations about how it could impact the Canadian news ecosystem and your constituents”.
Several of the claims in the letter have been made before and dismissed by news industry organisations in Canada and beyond.
Jason Kint, the chief executive of Digital Content Next, a trade association for online publishers in the US, said the letter was a sign that Google is “getting desperate up in Canada”. He likened the move to similar threats and warnings the tech giant made in Australia and Europe ahead of similar legislation in those jurisdictions.
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