Canadian news media could ironically owe millions to Google and Meta instead of the other way around under the Online News Act regulations proposed by Ottawa late last week. Tech news website The Logic cited an unnamed government official as confirming that the platforms could get credit for the traffic they send to news media websites in any deals made with them.
Publishers have complained that by posting links to their news stories, along with their headlines and a snippet of their content, Google is stealing from them. It sounds crazy to anyone who knows how the Internet works, but newspaper publishers have considerable power over public opinion, and they have framed their relationship with Google as that of victim and robber.
Google and Facebook s deals with publishers: What we know so far
The battle of big news versus big tech has only just begun, but already it might be over.
Facebook and Google have begun paying out to news groups in a bid to soften incoming regulation to curb their dominance of the digital advertising market – and they might just have done enough.
Timeline
February 25, 2021
Facebook’s shocking (if not surprising) week-long ban on quality news in Australia last month led to the world-first “news media bargaining code” being watered down somewhat before it gained Royal Assent this week.
Final amendments included the addition a two-month mediation period if both parties fail to reach a commercial agreement over three-months of bargaining, with binding arbitration – where an independent arbitrator chooses the fairest final offer of the two – now a “last resort”.