OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada and Google have reached a deal to keep news stories in search results and for the internet giant to pay C$100 million annually to news publishers in the country, the Canadian Heritage Minister said on Wednesday.
The deal resolves Alphabet-owned Google’s concerns over Canada’s online news law that aims to make large internet companies share advertising revenue with news publishers in the country.
“Following weeks of productive discussions, I am happy to announce that we have found a path forward with Google for the implementation of the Online News Act,” Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a statement.
The Online News Act, part of a global trend to make internet giants pay for news, passed the Canadian parliament in June and the government is finalizing rules that are expected to be released by a Dec. 19 deadline.
Google had said it would block news on its platform, saying said Canada’s law was more stringent than the ones in Europe and Australia, and raised concerns about the company being exposed to potentially uncapped liability.
Last month, a Canadian news industry body lent support to some of Google’s concerns about the new law.
Meta Platforms, the other internet giant that is the target of the law, has already blocked news sharing on Facebook and Instagram over its concerns about the law.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported the deal earlier.
($1 = 1.3593 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
