Google says it will remove news links in Canada because of the Liberal government’s new law forcing digital giants to compensate media outlets for content they share or otherwise repurpose online.
Sucks for the news publishers who had nothing to do with lobbying the government for this. They still get punished - with no google or facebook referrals that is a huge amount of traffic gone.
I just cannot get onboard with those defending this Bill. They point to Australia and exclaim, “they won in the end!” To which, this not the most sincere interpretation considering that they compromised with the tech giants and came to a mutual agreement.
The other point being that it took several years for that agreement to come. I don’t think Canada’s news industry has years to negotiate. News businesses are terminally ill, and a swift breeze could do them in. Severe traffic reductions to their websites will hurt revenue from advertisements; this could be the end for them.
