An update on Canada’s Bill C-18 and our Search and News products
blog.google"Bill C-18 has become law and remains unworkable. The Government has not given us reason to believe that the regulatory process will be able to resolve structural issues with the legislation. As a result, we have informed the Government that we have made the difficult decision that when the law takes effect we will be removing links to Canadian news from our Search, News, and Discover products and will no longer be able to operate Google News Showcase in Canada. Read our blog and consult our FAQ to learn more."
What made a similar legislation "work" in Australia? Was it harder for Facebook and Google to block news there as well?
The Australian legislation was touted as a link tax originally, but by the time it passed it had been reworked to compel Meta and Google to form commercial arrangements with journalism companies. We don’t know what is in those commercial arrangements (the law does not compel transparency) - presumably they involve, among other things, limits on financial liability which Google really wanted from Canada’s government and didn’t get.