What can Canada learn from Australia's bid to make big tech pay for news?
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Canadian lawmakers are locked in a dispute with internet technology companies over a law that would compel them to pay news publishers for content, years after a similar regulatory saga played out in Australia.

Some reflections on the Australian experience and what they might mean for Canada.

After Google’s move on Thursday, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez sent a written statement calling the companies’ moves “deeply irresponsible and out of touch … especially when they make billions of dollars off of Canadian users” with advertising.

Australia’s regulatory experiment – the first of its kind in the world – also got off to a rocky start, but it has since seen tech companies, news publishers and the government reach a middle ground.

  • terath@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    611·
    1 year ago

    It’s called negotiation. What Canada is doing is not that. They are demanding unbounded amounts of money.

    In Australia they ended up negotiating a price that worked for both sides. No doubt a predictable among each year too.

      • terath@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        Yes, which is literally why Google said they are preparing to remove links. They are not going to incur completely unknown penalties. In Australia Meta and others also pulled links for the same reason. It was only after they negotiated a price that worked for both sides that they came back. If I ran Google or Meta I’d do exactly the same thing.

        • StillPaisleyCat@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          They are jumping the gun.

          Retroactive establishment of penalties aren’t a thing in Canadian federal regulation.

          The penalties can’t be implemented without a Gazetting period for the regulations, and Meta and Google will have the opportunity to formally comment on the proposed penalties then.

          • terath@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Retroactive penalties absolutely are a thing. I’ve known people who have gotten bit by that when tax laws change retroactively. Also, Google hasn’t yet blocked anything, but implementing a block like that doesn’t happen overnight. So yes, they do need to start writing the and testing the code to do the blocking now, not at the last minute. The announcement is also part of their negotiation, making it clear that this is in fact a possible outcome.