Google has announced that it will completely remove links to Canadian media in its Search, News and Discover sections. The announcement follows Canada’s passage of the Online News Act, which will force large technology companies to pay their news publishers for linking to their content.
“The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (the so-called ‘link tax’) creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to unlimited financial liability simply for making it easier for Canadians to access news from Canadian publishers,” Kent Walker, president of Global Affairs at Google, says in his release. “We have been saying for more than a year that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism in Canada and may result in significant changes to our products.”
The approval of the Online News Act does not come as a surprise to Google, which has already been preparing for this possibility during these months and tried blocking news links in February. The company will begin removing links to Canadian media in about six months, when the new Canadian law comes into force. In addition, Google will stop offering Google News Showcase, Google’s service that highlights local news, in the country.
Google is the second major company to announce the withdrawal of news on its products. Just a few days ago, Meta also said it will block access to Canadian news on Facebook and Instagram because of this law: “We are confirming that news availability will end on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada before the Online News Act (Bill C-18) comes into force.”
The situation in Canada is reminiscent of what we experienced in Spain in 2014, when Google News left our country due to a reform of the Intellectual Property Law, which also intended to charge Google for linking to Spanish media.
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