Google has announced that it will remove news links from media outlets from its services in Canada.
After the Canadian Government enacted law C-18, which obliges Google and Meta to pay media outlets for the news they share on their platforms, Google, one of the world’s largest search engines, has decided not to publish news links on its services in Canada.
Kent Walker, Head of Global Affairs at Google, announced that it will remove news links from news content search, research and discovery products in Canada following the enactment of the law aimed at compensating media outlets.
“We’re disappointed that it’s gotten to this point. We don’t take this decision or its implications lightly. We believe it’s important to be as transparent as possible with Canadian publishers and our users,” said Walker.
“The unprecedented so-called ‘link tax’ to put a price on links creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to unlimited financial liability simply because we facilitate Canadians’ access to news from Canadian broadcasters,” said Kent Walker.
It was approved on June 22.
With the C-18 Online News Act, the Canadian Government mandated Google and Meta to pay media outlets for the news they share on their platforms.
The law, which was accepted in the Canadian Federal Parliament, was also approved in the Canadian Senate on June 22, 2023.
The law will take effect in the coming days, following the approval of the Governor-General of Canada.
Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, also announced that the law will be followed and access to news on these social media platforms will be terminated.