Google has reached an agreement with the Canadian government after months of commotion over a new law that requires mainstream online platforms to pay news outlets to share their articles.
While talking about the development, Pascale St-Onge, the minister of Canadian Heritage, said Google agreed to contribute 100 million Canadian dollars to the Canadian news industry after previously disagreeing with the Online News Act.
St. Onge revealed in a statement that Google will “play an important role in giving Canadians access to reliable news content.”
She said: “A sustainable news ecosystem is good for everyone. News and journalism serve to inform communities, drive civic engagement and counter the rise of disinformation. Access to news helps Canadians fully benefit and participate in democratic society. With newsrooms cutting positions or closing entirely, the health of the Canadian news industry has never been more at risk.”
The law requires agreements with news publishers and online platforms to compensate the news organizations for content shared online. The framework agreed to by Google and the Canadian government will include financial compensation packages to a range of news businesses, including independent outlets and outlets from Indigenous and minority communities.
The press release added that the law will become effective on December 19. The Canadian government said it would offer more details about the final regulations of the law before it is enacted fully.
St-Onge said Google also stated that the agreement will also make resources available for Canadian news organizations, including training and equipment for business development.
Advocates of the legislation argued that online platforms, like Meta and Google, raised their ad revenue from these news articles and that the news organizations were not adequately compensated.
Instead of compensating the outlets, Meta revealed in August that it would stop placing news articles in news feeds of users in Canada. Also, Google hinted at the time that it would follow suit, with Google executive Kent Walker stating that the law created “uncertainty” for the company.
Walker, of Google, said in a recent statement that St-Onge acknowledged the companies’ concerns in a series of “productive meetings.”
Walker said: “While we work with the government through the exemption process based on the regulations that will be published shortly, we will continue sending valuable traffic to Canadian publishers.”
