Photo by AS Photography
A Canadian regulatory body announced on Wednesday its decision to levy a fee on Google to recoup expenses associated with enforcing legislation that mandates significant internet platforms to compensate for news content featured on their sites. This fee imposition on the Mountain View, California-based technology giant occurs amid rising tensions between Canada and the United States regarding trade, border security, and a digital services tax targeting American tech companies.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) indicated that the majority of its funding derives from fees imposed on the entities it oversees, and the cost recovery provision related to the Online News Act will take effect on April 1. The fee may fluctuate annually and lacks a maximum limit.
The CRTC established this regulation following a series of public consultations, during which Google expressed its opposition, arguing that it was “not a rational approach” to allocate the entirety of the costs to a single entity.
As part of a broader global movement to require internet giants to financially support news organizations, Canada enacted this law last year in response to concerns from the media sector regarding the encroachment of tech companies into the online advertising space, which has adversely affected news businesses.
Only Alphabet’s Google and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, have reached the threshold of being sufficiently large entities that are required to compensate news organizations.
Following extensive negotiations with the government, Google has consented to an annual payment of C$100 million to publishers in exchange for maintaining news stories in its search results. In contrast, Meta opted to prohibit news content on its Facebook and Instagram platforms in Canada to circumvent such payments.
In its submission to the CRTC, Google contended that the regulation imposed an “unfair additional regulatory burden on a company that has consistently supported the news ecosystem in this country.”In a policy notice released on its website on Wednesday, the CRTC indicated that, due to the framework of the Online News Act, recovery costs can only be imposed on the digital platforms to which the legislation pertains.
