How Canada’s Bill C-18 has left a country without access to national news through Google - what is it?

Canadians today may have some difficulty getting their news through Google, as the company has axed their news aggregation service in the Great White North, in part thanks to a bill that has asked the search engine giant to pay Canadian news outlets for the use of their work. 

Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act, passed in Canada last week, requiring platforms like Google and Meta's Facebook to negotiate deals with news providers, with the bill coming into effect in the next six months. 

The act is with regards to respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada, and looks to create bargaining agreements with some of the countries leading media outlets in an effort to address “a significant bargaining power imbalance between the operators of the intermediary and the news outlets producing the news content.”

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will support and oversee the administration of this new regime, with new roles and powers, including drafting a Code of Conduct, determining eligible news businesses, maintaining a list of digital news intermediaries, supporting the arbitration process, and applying administrative monetary penalties for non-compliance.

That means that Google is now required to bargain with “eligible news businesses,” with the bargaining process potentially including bargaining sessions, mediation sessions, and final offer arbitration. But much like Meta have done with Facebook, Google have instead scrapped including local news links in their search engine.

While a number of media outlets championed the bill, analysts in Canada are now predicting those very same places may now be under threat as businesses, with Google generating a significant portion of web traffic to Canadian news outlets. 

As per the BBC, Google accounts for 30% of the traffic for Canadian media outlet Globe and Mail, publisher Phillip Crawley told parliament last month. For Le Devoir, a prominent French language publication, Google drives 40% of its traffic, with nearly 30% coming from social media.

Have any other countries tried to implement bills similar to Bill C-18?

In 2020, Australia tried to implement a similar bill aimed towards Facebook’s use of sharing stories from the country’s media outlets. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) drew up the rules to "level the playing field" between the tech giants and publishers that it says are struggling due to lost advertising revenue.

Titled ‘The News Media Bargaining Code,’ it mandated that digital platforms like Facebook and Google enter into negotiations with news publishers to reach agreements on the use of news content. The platforms were required to negotiate in good faith and provide advance notice of any algorithmic changes that could impact news content visibility.

Facebook briefly blocked Australian news content from its platform in February 2021 in response to the code's provisions. However, the Australian government made amendments to the code, including providing more flexibility in the arbitration process and the inclusion of additional factors for consideration by the arbitrator.