Google forced to cough up $74mn annually after reaching deal with Canada to keep news in search results

Google has reached adeal with Canada to keep news stories in search results and to pay news publishers $74 million (C$100 million) annually. Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge made the announcement on Wednesday (Nov 29) which brings an end to a bitter fight between the two parties that ensued at the start of the year.

The search engine giant had previously vowed to remove links to news in Canada in response to the Online News Act,introduced by Justin Trudeau's Liberal government and due to come into effect on December 19.

"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," said St-Onge.

The minister added that funding would be usedfor a "wide range of news businesses across the country, including independent news businesses and those from Indigenous and official-language minority communities".

As for how the money would be distributed, the government said Google would pay a "single collective" which would distribute the funds to news agencies based on the number of full-time journalists engaged by those businesses.

What did the lawsay?

Notably, the law, aimed at Google and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram - required the tech behemoths to negotiate deals with news publishers for their content.

After the announcement of the legislation, Google termed it "link tax" and began testing blocking some Canadian users' access to news on the platform.

"This unprecedented decision to put a price on links breaks the way the web and search engines work," Google argued in a blog post.

However, Trudeau hit back saying:"It really surprises me that Google has decided that they'd rather prevent Canadians from accessing news than actually pay journalists for the work they do. I think that's a terrible mistake and I know Canadians expect journalists to be paid for the work they do."

Google lamented that the Canadian legislation was more stringent and rigid than the ones in Australia and Europe. It raises concerns about the multi-billion-dollar company being exposed to potentially uncapped liability.

(With inputs from agencies)