Google and Canada Reach Agreement of IDR 1.1 Trillion Annually for News Providers

Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge (photo: x @PascaleStOnge_)

JAKARTA - The Canadian government and Google have reached an agreement to keep news appearing in search results and to pay 100 million Kanda dollars (around Rp. 1.1 trillion) every year to news publishers in the country. This was conveyed by Canadian officials on Wednesday, November 29.

The deal resolves concerns Google, which is owned by Alphabet, had over Canada's online news laws aimed at making large internet companies share advertising revenue with the country's news publishers.

"After months of productive discussions, I am pleased to announce that we have found a way forward with Google for the implementation of the Online News Act," Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a statement.

Canada's Online News Act, part of a global trend to make big internet companies pay for news, was passed in June and the government is finalizing rules that are expected to be released by the December 19 deadline.

Google confirmed that Ottawa has committed to addressing their core issues and that news will continue to be available on their platforms in Canada.

Google previously said it would block news on its platform, citing Canadian laws as stricter than those in Europe and Australia, and raising concerns about the company being exposed to potentially unlimited liability.

Meta Platforms, another internet company targeted by the law, has blocked news sharing on Facebook and Instagram over concerns about the law.

St-Onge said the deal with Google shows the new law is effective, and called on Facebook to explain its decision to block news sharing in Canada.

He added that Canada could reopen a deal with Google in the future if there is a better deal elsewhere in the world.

Last month, Google reached an agreement to pay a group of German publishers 3.2 million euros (IDR 54.3 billion) annually for the publication of their news content.

In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said its decision remained unchanged.

"Unlike search engines, we do not proactively pull news from the internet to place in our users' feeds and we have long maintained that the only way we can reasonably comply with the Online News Act is to end the availability of news to the public in Canada," the spokesperson said.

The law comes after complaints from Canada's media industry, which wants tighter regulation of technology companies to prevent them from displacing news businesses from the online advertising market.

As part of the deal with Canada, Google will contribute 100 million Canadian dollars annually, indexed to inflation, to the news business, and the company will have the option to work with a single collective to distribute the funds.

"This is very good news," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. "This is a deal, an agreement that will have repercussions throughout the world."

Paul Deegan, Chief Executive Officer of News Media Canada, welcomed the deal and thanked the government for ensuring cash compensation for publishers.

"We applaud Google for their honest and socially responsible approach," Deegan added in the statement.

News of the deal was first reported by Canada's CBC News.