Toronto (Canada) (EFE).- Google announced this Thursday that all its platforms will stop offering links to news in Canada and that it will cancel all the agreements it has with Canadian information companies, in response to a new law that requires paying to the country’s media for sharing their materials.
Kent Walker, president of Global Affairs for Google and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), described in a statement as “unfeasible” the rule approved last week by the Canadian Parliament and which is expected to enter into force in the coming months.
Google does not see clarity in the regulation of the Government of Canada
Walker added that the Canadian government has not provided the multinational “reasons” that make them trust that the regulatory process will resolve the “structural problems” of the law.
For this reason, Google has informed the US government that it will remove all links to Canadian news from its Search, News and Discover pages in the country, while Google News Showcase, which distributed news from 150 local publishers under license, will cease to operate. .
Last week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, took a similar step.
Meta said in a statement that media content “will not be available” to people who access its platforms in Canada “, after the approval of the law.
In addition, Meta said it will stop funding internships for young journalists at Canada’s news agency, Canadian Press.
No agreement on payment to media
Meta and Google have refused to pay the media companies, claiming that distributing links to their news is “beneficial” for newspapers and the media.
For its part, the Canadian government has said that the measures adopted by Google and Facebook are a threat to democracy and has assured that it will not be intimidated by the economic resources and lawyers of the two technology companies.
News Media Canada, the association that groups newspaper publishers in the country, has applauded the new law, which it has described as a “first step” to equalize the imbalance of power between publishers and the giants of the technology sector.