Google set to remove links to Canadian news sites from search engines in the country

Google plans to remove links to Canadian news sites from its search engines in the country, after the Canadian Parliament passed a law requiring major online platforms to pay news outlets to share their stories.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said in a press release Thursday that the law “remains unworkable,” leading the company to make the “difficult decision” to remove links to Canadian news from Google Search, Google News and other products in Canada when the law goes into effect.

Walker argued that the Online News Act “creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating Canadians’ access to news from Canadian publishers.”

“We have been saying for over a year that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism in Canada and may result in significant changes to our products,” he said.

“We’re disappointed it has come to this,” Walker added. “We don’t take this decision or its impacts lightly and believe it’s important to be transparent with Canadian publishers and our users as early as possible.”

Meta similarly said last week that it would follow through on its plans to block news content Facebook and Instagram in Canada over the new law.

“We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” Meta leaders said in a statement last Thursday.