Alphabet Inc.'s Google shared on Thursday in a blogpost that it will be removing links to Canadian news from its Search, News, and Discover products, while Google News Showcase will no longer be operable in the country.
Canadian government previously introduced Bill C-18 (the Online News Act), which makes it mandatory for companies such as Google or Meta Platforms Inc. to pay for merely showing links to a news article and acting as intermediaries. This is "something that everyone else does for free," Google underlined.
"We repeatedly offered constructive feedback and recommended solutions that would have made it more workable for both platforms and publishers," the company said, adding, however, that the government failed to provide it with "sufficient certainty that the regulatory process will be able to resolve structural issues with the legislation."