Google to Remove News Links from Search, News, and Discover in Canada

Following a similar decision by Meta, Google today said that it would remove news from its key products in Canada because of a new law there that requires it to pay news publishers for displaying their content.

“The Government of Canada has enacted a new law called Bill C-18 (the Online News Act), requiring two companies to pay for simply showing links to news, something that everyone else does for free,” Google president Kent Walker explains. “The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (a so-called ‘link tax’) creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating Canadians’ access to news from Canadian publishers. We have been saying for over a year that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism in Canada and may result in significant changes to our products.”

The Online News Act became law in Canada one week ago, on June 22, and will take effect in six months. It doesn’t technically target “two companies”—presumably Google and Meta—specifically, but it is instead aimed at digital platforms that act as intermediaries between news content publishers and consumers. It’s designed to secure fair compensation for news businesses whose content is made available via “dominant digital news intermediaries” that earn money off of the content creators’ work. If publishers can’t reach terms with these intermediaries, the legislation requires the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to act as a mediator on their behalf.

According to Mr. Walker, Google has already negotiated agreements that cover over 150 Canadian news publications via its News Showcase program, helping them “make money through ads and new subscriptions.” And it has been a vocal critic of the Online News Act since it was introduced last year, describing it as “unworkable legislation that could lead to changes that affect the availability of news on Google’s products in Canada.” More recently, it has discussed the law’s most pressing issues with the Canadian government with the hope of reaching a compromise.

“While we appreciate the Government’s acknowledgment that our concerns were reasonable and confirmation that the law will not apply until they adopt implementing regulations,” he says, “they have not provided us with sufficient certainty that the regulatory process will be able to resolve structural issues with the legislation (such as forced payment for links and uncapped financial liability).”

Canada apparently expected that the new law would lead to more revenue for Canadian news publishers whose work was posted to and linked from Big Tech companies like Google and Meta. But that hasn’t happened. Last week, Meta said that it would pull news from Facebook and Instagram in the country. And now Google is doing the same.