Google says it may ‘assess’ future news access in Canada over Bill C-18 – National | 24CA News
Google Canada has advised senators that it could be cheap to rethink whether or not it shares hyperlinks to news websites if the federal government’s on-line news invoice turns into legislation, however it’s not promising to dam them.
Richard Gingras, the vice-president of the corporate’s news division, advised a Senate committee Wednesday that Google has shared its considerations with the laws for over a yr.
Bill C-18 would require tech giants to pay Canadian media firms for linking to or in any other case repurposing their content material on-line.
But Gingras mentioned these considerations haven’t been thought of and that latest amendments to the invoice have made issues worse in some circumstances.
Sen. Paula Simons referred to as Gingras’s feedback “rather conciliatory,” in gentle of the check it ran earlier this yr.
Back in February, Google Canada ran a five-week check wherein it restricted entry to news content material for round 4 per cent of its Canadian customers.
Critics referred to as {that a} bully tactic on the time, and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters mentioned it’s proof that international digital giants didn’t intend to play truthful.
Gingras mentioned the corporate hasn’t made a ultimate resolution on whether or not it is going to restrict journalism hyperlinks for Canadian customers going ahead. When Sen. Donna Dasko requested what the corporate will do if the invoice passes in its present type, he mentioned he doesn’t have certainty.
“Do we need to assess how we use links?” he mentioned. “Do we need to assess whether it is logical for us to continue to provide a service like Google News, which earns us no revenue, yet drives significant traffic to publishers?”
Simons additionally took challenge with Google’s concern that the invoice doesn’t create journalistic requirements, and questioned whether or not the corporate wished leeway to manipulate that itself or if it wished the federal government to take action.
Gingras mentioned he doesn’t suppose it’s as much as the federal government, “or anyone, to decide exactly what journalism is.”
“The point we were trying to make, and will continue to make, is that the underlying precept of the bill was to drive support for the quality development of journalism for local communities across Canada,” he mentioned, arguing the invoice won’t try this as a result of the definition of eligible companies is just too broad.
The Senate communications committee additionally heard from representatives for Meta, the corporate that owns Facebook and Instagram, which made the case that news is a tiny fraction of its business.
The firm estimates that folks clicked on publishers’ hyperlinks greater than 1.9 billion instances within the final yr from Facebook feeds, which it says is price an estimated $230 million.
“It is publishers that benefit from being on our platforms, not the reverse,” mentioned Rachel Curran, Meta Canada’s head of public coverage.
She mentioned posts linking to news articles are lower than three per cent of what folks see of their Facebook feeds, and greater than 90 per cent of views on news publishers’ articles are on hyperlinks posted by the publishers themselves.
Curran mentioned if the invoice passes, Meta has no selection however to adjust to it “by ending the availability of news content in Canada.”
“We don’t lose any revenue, or very little revenue, if news content is substituted by something else,” she mentioned.
Google mentioned it takes challenge with provisions it says override copyright allowances by placing a value on hyperlinks.
Gingras mentioned if the corporate has to pay publishers for linking to their websites, it could lose cash with every click on, which might create an unreasonable monetary legal responsibility for Google.
He additionally mentioned advertisers are usually not significantly considering news searches, and he, too, argued the corporate is keen to do extra to help news than it earns.
“News queries to Google on Google search are less than two per cent of overall queries,” he mentioned.
“The amount of revenue that we earn directly from news on our products is even less than that.”
Google is asking for an exemption to provisions of the legislation, saying that may enable it to barter voluntary funding agreements with publishers.
Curran argued that Facebook has a really totally different relationship with news publishers than Google as a result of it doesn’t mixture their content material, and Meta is asking for an modification to be scoped out of the invoice.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
