Google agrees to an annual payment of $100 million to Canadian news publishers through a deal with the Ottawa government.
Ottawa has agreed to establish an annual payment ceiling of $100 million for Google’s obligations to media companies under the impending online news legislation, set to take effect at the end of this year.
The announcement on Wednesday indicates a concession by the Liberals to the tech giant’s demands, following Google’s threat in February to remove news content from its platform. The Online News Act mandates compensation agreements between tech giants and news publishers for content that generates revenue on platforms like Google.
Under the proposed regulations, broadcasters, French-language, and Indigenous news organizations, in addition to newspapers, would qualify for these agreements. The draft regulations suggest that the compensation amount would be tied to the number of full-time journalists employed by the news organizations.
Initially, the government’s draft regulations proposed a formula that could have led to Google contributing up to $172 million to news organizations. However, Google objected, citing a previous estimate from Canadian Heritage officials and insisting on a figure closer to $100 million.
Following a prolonged period of negotiations, the company seems to have achieved its desired outcome. Nevertheless, Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge described it as a “historic development” on Wednesday, emphasizing that the agreement is ultimately a victory for both the government and the local news publishers it aims to assist.
“We have found a path forward to answer Google’s questions about the process and the act. Google wanted certainty about the amount of compensation it would have to pay to Canadian news outlets,” she said on Parliament Hill.
“Canada reserves the right to reopen our regulations if there are better agreements struck elsewhere in the world,” she added.
Under the agreement, Google will fulfill legislative requirements by making payments to a unified collective bargaining group, serving as a media fund.
