Canada’s upcoming ‘Online News Acts’ receives cold response from tech giants

Kathmandu, 20 Sept: The Canadian Government is set to bring into force the ‘Online News Act’ to regulate global tech giants like Meta and Google.

The tech companies must pay Canadian news outlets in order to host their content, as per the new law.

“The Online News Act aims to ensure that dominant platforms compensate news businesses when their content is made available on their services. The act creates a bargaining framework to ensure that platforms compensate news businesses fairly,” said Xinhua quoting The Department of Canadian Heritage.

To implement the new law, in the first week of September, the Trudeau government released draft rules which will come into force by December this year and tech companies have asserted that the new Canadian law is unworkable for their businesses, according to Xinhua.

Irked by the Canadian legislation, social media giant Meta has started blocking the sharing of news on its platforms in Canada since August, it said adding and in a recent media interview, a Google spokesperson said, “We are currently reviewing the proposed regulations to assess whether they resolve the serious structural issues with the Canadian law.”