(Ottawa) Google is tearing apart Ottawa’s draft regulations which specify the scope of the Online News Act. In its document submitted to the federal government during consultations, the company mentions that it could suspend any link to Canadian journalistic content from its search engine.
The “web giant”, however, does not go so far as to state with certainty that it will carry out its threat to permanently shut off the news tap as soon as Bill C-18 comes into force, scheduled for December.
“We’re looking for a way out that can avoid this,” a Google representative said during a technical briefing for journalists.
The federal government, when it presented its draft regulations in September, maintained that it was aimed in particular at responding to Google’s concerns and requests.
However, at the end of a 30-day consultation on the subject, the company expressed its dissatisfaction: first in a statement sent to the media on Monday, then on Friday in the consultation documents made public.
“Although the Regulation seeks to ‘clarify the application of the law’ (C-18), it unfortunately creates more uncertainty by attempting to transform the mandatory negotiation model provided by the law into an imposition model” , we can read.
“The result of this exercise is a hybrid model that represents the worst of both worlds,” it was also written.
According to the “web giant”, Ottawa’s roadmap amounts to “imposing the obligations of a tax without offering certainty and (to) asking Google to absorb all the responsibilities and costs associated with negotiating agreements and disbursing funds, without the company having the flexibility to make real arrangements to address its concerns.”
Bill C-18 aims to force digital giants to enter into compensation agreements with news media for sharing their content.
The draft regulation, presented in September, clarified that any platform with a turnover of at least one billion Canadian dollars per year and with at least 20 million users in Canada each month will be subject to the law.
Ottawa expects the legislation to apply to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and Google – provided they allow news sharing.
Platforms that do not allow such sharing will escape the provisions of the law.
Meta has already started such a block since August for Canadian users of its platforms. Google has threatened to do the same, but has not yet taken action, except temporarily, last spring, to conduct “tests”.
In its documents published Friday, Google does not decide, but mentions a possible suspension.
The company makes this mention in a passage criticizing the deadlines provided for in the law and regulations. More precisely, deadlines are provided for a platform to be exempt from a mandatory negotiation framework which also has its own deadlines. To be exempt, a “web giant” must voluntarily enter into agreements with a “range” of players, including local media.
Google believes it could find itself in a situation where it requests an exemption at the same time as it is engaged in a mandatory negotiation process.
“The timing issue remains, which could put Google in a position where it would have to suspend links to news content during the process of obtaining an exemption,” it is argued.
The exact contribution that Google may have to pay to the media will be established based on a formula which could still be modified.
Under the current federal proposal, compensation will be established based on the amount of the company’s overall revenues multiplied by the Canadian share of global GDP, then multiplied by 4%.
PHOTO COLE BURSTON, THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge
Google calls this rate “an arbitrary figure that overestimates the commercial value of news links”.
Earlier this week, the Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, said she was “still confident” of finding common ground with Google even if the digital company had already expressed its dissatisfaction.
“The channels of communication are open,” the minister said on Wednesday.
On Friday, she argued that while the Online News Act isn’t perfect, the media landscape is changing too quickly for the government to wait any longer.
Speaking at a conference of the international news agency MINDS in Toronto, Mr.me St-Onge said the government intends to maintain the law. She made these comments before the publication of the Google documents.