What we know so far about Google's $100M media fund
CBC
This week, Google struck an agreement with the federal government that will see the online giant pay $100 million to news outlets across the country.
The compensation was required by the Online News Act. The Trudeau government said the law was needed to support journalism that drives civic engagement, counters disinformation and upholds democracy.
Details of how the $100 million in compensation will be managed and distributed have not yet been published. Here is what we know so far.
Bill C-18, the Online News Act, became law on June 22, 2023; it doesn't take effect until December 19. Regulations detailing how the law will be applied will be published before the law takes effect.
The law requires digital platforms with 20 million unique monthly users and annual revenues of $1 billion or more to compensate news outlets for sharing links to their pages. Only Google and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, meet those criteria in Canada.
The federal government has said the bill is meant to support journalism by encouraging platforms to reach voluntary agreements with media outlets. If a platform is unable to reach an agreement, the law requires that it participate in mediation.
If mediation fails, the law says an arbitration process would evaluate proposals from the platform and the affected news services. The arbitration panel would then choose one of the offers.
Meta managed to exclude itself from paying compensation by ceasing to share links to Canadian news articles on its platforms. Google struck a deal directly with the Liberal government instead of negotiating with individual news outlets.
Google has agreed to provide an annual payment of $100 million, indexed to inflation, to news media in Canada in exchange for continuing to share links to Canadian news outlet pages.
As a part of the deal, Google provided assurances that Canadian news outlets will be treated fairly in comparison with deals it might strike with news media in other countries.
A government statement said that if news outlets abroad strike a better deal with Google, the company would go back to the federal government "with a view to resolving any concerns."
Some details of how the $100 million from Google will be managed have been released. Further guidance is expected when final regulations are published before the law comes into force on Dec. 19.
When it announced the deal, the Liberal government said Google would meet with "a single collective" to distribute the money to all "interested eligible news businesses based on the number of full-time equivalent journalists engaged by those businesses."
Appearing at a House of Commons committee on Thursday, Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said it's possible that "several collectives" of news media outlets could negotiate with Google.
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