After the Meta offensive, it’s Google’s turn to announce that it will stop relaying news content from Canadian media in its search engine, in protest against the Ottawa Online News Act .
“We have informed the government that we have made the difficult decision to remove, as soon as the law comes into force, links to Canadian news in our Search, News and Discover products and that we will no longer be able to offer Google News Showcase. in Canada,” Kent Walker, the company’s president of international affairs, wrote in a blog post published Thursday.
He said he was “disappointed to come to this”, but believes that the new Ottawa regulations “remain unenforceable”, which the company has been repeating for months.
Passed last week, the Online News Act, formerly known as Bill C-18, is due to come into force in six months. It will force platforms such as Google and Meta — parent company of Facebook and Instagram — to pay news media for news they share or reuse. The web giants will have to negotiate directly with the press companies.
Further details will follow.
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