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Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) says it’s following through on a warning to pull its Google News Showcase offering in Canada in the wake of the country’s new Online News Act.
It’s also going to remove links to Canadian news from its Search, News and Discover products when the new law takes effect, the company said in a blog entry.
“We’re disappointed it has come to this,” wrote Kent Walker, Alphabet’s president of Global Affairs. “We don’t take this decision or its impacts lightly and believe it’s important to be transparent with Canadian publishers and our users as early as possible.”
The company said in February that it was testing blocking access to news content in reaction to Canada’s then-proposed Bill C-18, intended to push platforms to negotiate payment with publishers for their content.
Now “Bill C-18 has become law and remains unworkable. The Government has not given us reason to believe that the regulatory process will be able to resolve structural issues with the legislation,” Google said.
The law calls for “two companies to pay for simply showing links to news, something that everyone else does for free,” Walker said. “The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (a so-called ‘link tax’) creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating Canadians’ access to news from Canadian publishers.”