Commentary

A Game Of Chicken: Google Threatens To Join Meta In Blocking News In Canada

by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 9, 2023

Google apparently is ready to follow its fellow tech giant Meta into turning Canada into a news wasteland.

On Friday, Google doubled down on its threat to cut off news in the country starting around Dec. 19 if Canada’s Online News Act, requiring payment to publishers, is implemented. Meta is already blocking news.

Google demands eight changes to the bill, including a redefinition of who deserves compensation, copyright issues and handling of exemptions, according to local reports.

Corporate bullying is hardly unusual, but rarely is it applied in such a broad way to an entire country.

At a time like this, with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, with wildfires and other disasters hitting Canada, it is wildly irresponsible to cut off news.

Google and Meta will argue that news searches make up a tiny percentage of their overall traffic. If that’s the case, then why are they complaining so loudly about the impact?

U.S. marketers should beware: the same kinds of news blackouts will be applied in response to state laws like California’s. And a national law would doubtless provoke the same heavy-handed treatment that Canada is getting.

Who’s in charge here? A law has been passed. If the tech giants can blackmail governments and publishers in this way, maybe it's time to up the legislative ante and assert greater control over them.

canada, legal, news, publishing

3 comments about "A Game Of Chicken: Google Threatens To Join Meta In Blocking News In Canada".

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Richard Marchbanks from RIch LLC, October 10, 2023 at 9:07 a.m.
Why not? Google and Meta were able to swing a US election by blocking news that would expose their chosen candidate's corruption.
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J W from Unknown Universe, October 10, 2023 at 11:47 a.m.

I call this TERRORISM on Google and Meta's part.

Gordon Borrell from Borrell Associates, October 10, 2023 at 1:25 p.m.

If one considers hardball business negotions "terrorism," then I guess it is. I see no need for governments to get involved in a dispute between one business that says, "you must pay for my content if it appears on your site," and the other that says, "ok, we'll take your content off it." Seems like a reasonable response to me, and the start of negotiations. It's incumbent on the news industry or individual, large news orgs to take up the challenge and negotiate -- not the government's.